The ambu-boat…..

On Wednesday lunchtime, whilst at the pub, we decided on a slight change of plan for picking up Flo on Sunday.  We were a bit concerned about finding a mooring space in Banbury, so we decided that Aynho was a better bet.  However, we didn’t want to sit still for 4 days, so on Thursday morning we tootled of down to Aynho Wharf, turned the boat and headed back in the direction of Banbury.  The plan was to stop at Twyford Wharf, then continue to Banbury on Friday to top up supplies at Morrison’s, turn and go back to Twyford  and then back to Aynho on Saturday.  Thursday was a beautiful hot and sunny day – we spent the afternoon at Twyford sitting in the sunshine watching the world go by.

We had a little excitement for an hour or so.  Mid afternoon the Twyford Wharf day-boat came by, carrying 2 NHS paramedics.  They had had a call from a boater moored not all that further up from us.  We found out afterwards that his wife had been playing with their dog, a hefty staffy, when it slammed into her and injured her leg.  They managed to get her onto the day-boat, which then reversed back towards us and the wharf.  This little day-boat was a pig to reverse and it took a long time, having to be fended off from every boat they passed.  Eventually reaching the winding hole just behind where we were moored, they turned and immediately got stuck in the mud!  This poor lady was sitting on the back, obviously in a lot of pain.  Moored at last, they brought the ambulance into the drive of the Wharf, putting her leg in a blow-up splint, they got her off the boat and into the ambulance.

Later on in the evening, we caught up with her hubby – it turned out that her leg was broken!  Anyway, the story in pictures follows:

Our mooring on Thursday afternoon

On Friday morning we continued on to Banbury, filled with water and emptied a loo cassette, then went up the lock, through the lift bridge, through the town centre, past all the moored boats and turned at the winding hole past Spiceball park, and returned to the lock.  A boat pulled out just ahead of us from the moorings opposite the shopping centre, so I went to the lift bridge with her crew (the Mrs) to lower the bridge after both boats had passed through, to enable her to go and prep the lock.  She nearly clonked a poor old lady with a zimmer frame on the head with the beam (the old dear hadn’t realised where she was standing, and Mrs hadn’t a clue what she was doing!  They mucked about a bit and a boat came up the lock meanwhile.  There was then a domestic between the boat that had come up the lock and the boat preceding us, as they hadn’t left enough room for the boat to exit the lock and turn to the right to negotiate the lift bridge. The woman helming the boat which had come up the lock was furious, being very precious about her paintwork, and it wasn’t at all a smart boat, just bog-standard tatty.  I do love a domestic – especially when it doesn’t involve us!

Eventually we got to Morrison’s and Rog went to get the few bits that we needed, and then we returned to Twyford for the night.

This morning we have come back to Aynho and moored in the same spot that we had on Wednesday.  We went for lunch at the pub and just after we returned we had a ‘Chance’ encounter!  We knew that Doug and James on nb Chance were heading towards us, just not when we would meet them.  They hovered mid canal for a bit while we had a chat, and then had to continue on – they didn’t want to get stuck behind the day-boat which was coming up from behind them.  Lovely to see you both, hopefully we’ll catch up again for a few pints at some point.

And last but not least – there are tons of runny-babbits (sorry, family slang for rabbits) in the field opposite our mooring – just a couple of pics,seeing as I missed photographing the urban fox we spotted lurking in some bushes canal-side just on the outskirts of Banbury