Wednesday 3rd June: Although it rained overnight and our sleep was disturbed by an RAF transport plane doing circuits over Oxfordshire between midnight and one am that involved a steep turn onto the line of the Thames right over our boat (I think he did between 8-10 circuits and only missed us once!) today was a glorious day. It started with a surprise though, the electric fence across the meadow must have been removed to allow the dairy herd to get to fresh grass including that surrounding the boat. First thing I heard what I thought was walkers on the Thames path but looking out of the porthole found a group of cows staring back at me. Made for an interesting walk with the dogs first thing! Once back we decided to get moving before the cows did any damage with the ropes and in the hope that we could share the lock ahead with a narrow boat I had seen approaching Radcot lock.
It was a very sunny and reasonably warm start to the day but there was still bit of a breeze as we set off. In the event the narrow boat did not catch us up until after we passed through Grafton lock and were on the water point. The lock was manned by a very friendly lock keeper so no "self service" today. We moved on through some more s-bends and past more yellow meadows and moored up about midday just before the official mooring for the manor house (which was occupied).
Today was one of two days in the week that the house is open to the public, so we made haste and went off to visit the home of William & Jane Morris & Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It is an idyllic and very quirky and homely old farm house with lovely garden
built by Tomas Turner about 1600. We had a quiche and salad lunch sitting outside in the sun
and walked into the village to visit a craft fair in the Morris Memorial village hall. Bought a Biro with Olive wood barrel and an oak cased battery clock for the boat. We then collected the dogs for a furtgher explore including a visit to the church and grave yard to see the unusual William Morris grave stone.
Returned to PO with a stop for refreshment at The Plough (again sitting outside in the sun)
Unfortunately it is undergoing refurbishment and not serving food at present. Once returned to PO we had a most enjoyable evening before dinner sitting outside (under almost total blue sky) listening to the birdsong. Is this summer at last?
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