Share on social media

My time in Somerton Meadows finished. What a pretty place it is.

Whilst walking back to pick the car up on my first night. I took these photos.

I’ve not seen a glow-worm in the UK for years.

These were just under the railway bridge on the towpath close to Heyford. When you pick them up, they’re about the size of a wasp! They don’t sting like one though, they were fairly docile. I put him back on his leaf after having a quick look at him.

Just goes to show, not all the insects have died out…. Yet.

Somerton

I stayed in Somerton for the full 2 weeks and left on Sunday.

I don’t think it rained once but the farmer did put the cows back in the field which meant we had the additional obstacle of cow-pats to negotiate. The bull was in there too. I only saw him once: when I was bringing my shopping and laundry back. I didn’t want to walk around the cows, which were all bunched up, so I shooed them out of the way. To my surprise, in the middle of the bunch as the cows moved out of the way, a big bull stood looking back at me!

He’s fairly docile specimen. I think he thought I was going to round him up using his nose ring, but I just continued forging through the cow heard with my heavy shopping bags back to the boat.

View’s down onto the floodplain.

It’s a nice spot.

Cycling in the Costwolds

Somerton is right on the doorstep of the Cotswolds. Both weekends whilst I was there, I went cycling. 22 miles the first time and around 26 the second.

My ride took me through ‘The Tews‘ which is close to where David Beckham lives, on to ‘the Bartons‘, to somewhere called ‘Enstone‘, which is on the main road, then back through Kidington (not Kidlington) toward home, Somerton Meadows.

First time, I was fairly shocked at how tired I was after the ride. I put it down to the wind, which was pretty constantly in my face the whole time it seemed.

The second time, I was tired after also. This is coming from someone who usually does 60-80 miles a day when cycling abroad in temperatures 25-35°c with a load of 20-25kg.

I can attribute my high level of tiredness to the frequent and usually quite severe undulations that make ‘the Cotswolds’. I remember cycling through Cornwall and finding it more harsh than Scotland for the same reasons.

The hills were frequent and steep. Whereas in Scotland, they were just steep.

The constant alteration in cadence, I think we call that…. really wears you out.

Cotswold traffic

The amount of traffic on the main road was shocking contrast from non-school holidays to first week of. Went from the odd car to a continuous stream of traffic on the main road from Oxford to Chipping Norton. As soon as you turn off onto any of the minor roads it’s one car every half hour again!

I prefer one car every half hour, unsurprisingly, and on my second cycling trip out, this lead to me taking a longer and unplanned convoluted route. I hadn’t planned it, but when I hit the main road, the level of traffic really put me off and I ended up diving of down one off the single tracks.

Whilst I was cycling, I discovered this 15th century church in Middle Barton. Trees are kind of obscuring it, but it is quite pretty. 🙂 It’s named after Edward the Confessor who was born in Islip, not far from here.

Leaving Somerton

After 2 weeks, I left on Sunday 4th. A relatively short trip to the bright lights of Aynho Wharf which is in Northamptonshire. Just about.

On the way up Someone had moored their boat on the lock landing at Somerton deep lock and the boats were stacking up, having to queue up and use the fence posts as mooring.

Somerton, like it’s name suggests, is a deep lock. It takes a lot of water, and currently, one of the paddles is broken. It empties out at half of the speed it should effectively.

I’ve no idea why this guy has left his boat here. Maybe it was his idea of a joke.

Very inconsiderate.

Ayhno hello

There were plenty of boats at the wharf and I had set up before 11 not to get involved in the day-time cruising crush which might be between about 12pm and 4. Those are the hours in which people have roused themselves enough to get some movement done. Anything either side, and the traffic drops of in synchronicity with the Sunday cruisers energy levels!

Aynho has a pub. This helps peoples energy levels drop quite significantly…. Usually enough that they do no more cruising once they reach here!

I got my water filled up but the rubbish bins were full.

Got some fuel. Diesel. That’s £159 on Diesel so far in 2024. Those solar panels are certainly making an impact.

Here’s where I moored up.

No-no Aynho

When I got there, the 3network phone signal showed a 4G icon. All is well and good I thought. After some moving around and testing the strength, I noticed some irregularities.

• The signal was showing 4G, but speeds were much, much less.
• The speeds very early in the morning were up to 10 times greater.
• The speeds fluctuated between the highest speed of 9MBS, (6am in the morning), to 0.3MBS, (various times throughout the day).

Obviously, being someone that relies on the internet for work, this wasn’t something that was going to be practical in getting anything done, workwise or otherwise.

Also, my works phone is on O2. O2 has no signal whatsoever in Aynho. That meant I would be 100% reliant on 3 for my signal and internet.

1.9 is unusable. And I had to move on.

On to the pig place

It got to about 11am on Monday and I decided to call it quits and move.

Pig place is maybe an hour. It’s only about 1 mile or so, but you’ve got the Cherwell stop-lock and the other Nell Bridge locks, where Bonnie is pictured here.

Mobile speeds at Pig Place are 10MBS to 50MBS.

That’s similar to household broadband speed. Nothing to complain about there.

Solar is pretty good. Parking is ok. Bit of a walk away. Pig place itself has the occasional band on. It’s ok for the occasional pint if the weather’s good.

I had to stop there on Monday. Due to moving around, I hadn’t managed to go shopping and I didn’t have anything to eat for lunch!

Managed to nip over with a little help from my recent purchase from Argos, this INFLATABLE CANOE!

£69 when I bought it, now £99 on the Argos website. It allows me to get to those places sometimes more difficult to reach! Especially when on the farside bank, like pig place.

This time, when I went for a sandwich, I didn’t have to spend 15 mins walking right the way around…. In the canoe, it took about 1 minute and a half. This may be a useful device for other excursion and ventures to the other side, as it were.

Until next time!