We stayed put in Napton yesterday, welcoming some neighbours to Bella in order to talk boats. Carol and Stuart were celebrating a Birthday at the Bridge in Napton, as were we on Saturday night, and they shared their cake with us so of course we started talking boats. After a lovely chat with them on Sunday afternoon, knitting friend Helen arrived and with all the craft chat and clicking of knitting pins, Pete just managed to stop from jumping in the canal. He prepared dinner instead. One of our faves - haggis, neaps and tatties. For our US readers, this is Scottish haggis (a very large sausage of lamb, oats, herbs and spices) with mashed swede (otherwise known as turnips hence the nips/neaps) and mashed potatoes (known at taters, or tatties).
We travelled back today, setting out south and then turning in the winding hole immediately opposite the pub. This is wind like binned; a turning place - a place where a boat can turn perpendicular to the towpath when in the past horse pulling days of canals, the wind would have then pushed the boat the opposing direction. (Yasmin and Robert may recall this squeeze of a turn from their visit to us last year). Today we were well prepared with Bella in neutral, Pete at the bows with the bargepole and Elizabeth on the bank with the stern rope. Between Pete using the pole rather like a gondola or a punt and with Elizabeth walking the stern around, they nugded the bows into the apex of the turning point. Pete held her there and Elizabeth just kept walking with the stern rope, managing to change Bella from south facing to north. Just ten minutes later, we had managed a full turn with a 69 foot boat in a 65 foot winding hole. We're proud! A kingfisher celebrated our success as we travelled north on the Oxford Canal and a lonely moorhen hungrily welcomed us into our Blue Haven mooring.
