As we prepare to set out, we'll just sum up our week here. It has been busy with work, with us going to the office every day. Now THAT is a shock! It has been fun, as we like our Oxford office, really a desk in a shared space in the Ethical Property Company's Old Music Hall building on the Cowley Road only just around the corner from where we used to live and have our office. So it's a bit of old stomping ground with the added benefit of other people in the office, colleagues, networking, fast internet and all that good stuff.
Of the boats, we've caught up again with Virgo, a lovingly and well restored Grand Union Canal Carrying Company boat owned by Guy. We first met last August in Braunston. Then we met up again with Utrecht and her Dutch owners who we first met a few weeks ago on the Watford flight on the Leicester section of the Grand Union. Thrupp is a busy boaters meeting point with regular passings and moorings each day. You can see that Bella is far from alone in her mooring.
We've been moored opposite horses whose whinnies are wonderful to hear, have been seeing large fish - perhaps carp - some of whom don't look well and we wonder... There has been the lively aroma of muck spreading which we masked indoors with a little Tea Tree and Ylang Ylang oil in the aromatiser, Pete has seen a Kingfisher fly back and forth in its patch and we have enjoyed the regular visits of the ducks and their ducklings. Bella's garden continues to grow and Fuchsia is about to burst forth! And we've been moored up alongside 200 year old cottages, one of them lived in by Juliet and family - Juliet and Elizabeth used to work in social enterprise advocacy together. Small world in so many ways! It has been fun to be here amongst people we know. We've visited the pub with Kate, Maffi and Iona, then met Guy and others there. Kate came to breakfast the morning after her party, then we met her in her office on Tuesday.
And, though we have not moved Bella, other than to moorings closer to the bridge as they are free, Pete has been driving boats. Tuesday night, Pete was tillerman for Kate and Morning Mist as Kate stayed inside making some order out of her chaos and Elizabeth drove to Enslow to collect Pete when they all arrived. Moving on again on Thursday, Pete took the tiller and drove Morning Mist to Heyford with Kate still working below decks. Elizabeth drove to Heyford to lift the Lift bridge, to collect Pete and wave Kate and Morning Mist on their way towards Banbury.
Friday evening, our boating friends Dom and Helen, now between boats and living near Fenny (see blog about us helping them warm their house), met us at Tooley's Boatyard in Banbury as we all attended a performance of Kate's play, Ramlin Rose. Tooley's dry dock had been turned into a theatre for the event and it was quite an experience sitting inside the oldest dry dock on the Oxford canal watching a friend bring the experience of living on the canals to life. Moving between tears and laughter, we heard of her Rose and Syra's cargo carrying life. Wonderful.
Today we'll set out north again.
