Drawing back the curtains from our mooring on the Thames, we were greeted by clear blue skies and after a leisurely breakfast on board we decided to take a stroll around Clifton Hampden as it was too dark to see much the night before.
Both the village and the Barley Mow pub (where we had enjoyed a meal the night before) were featured in Jerome K. Jerome’s book ‘Three Men in a Boat’. He described Clifton Hampden as ‘a wonderfully pretty village, old fashioned, peaceful, and dainty with flowers’. Of the Barley Mow pub he thought it ‘without exception the quaintest, most old-world inn up the river’. He’d definitely summed up the village very well as all these years later we were still in agreement with his 1889 book.
It was approaching 10.15 a.m. by the time we returned to the boat and as some ducks and geese had gathered around expectantly, we fed them before untying the boat and remembered to take the chimney off the roof before setting off.
We continued downstream as far as the village of Burcot reaching there at 10.55 a.m. where we ogled at more beautiful waterside properties, many of them with their own boat houses and landing stages.
We then decided to turn the boat around as we were mindful of returning it promptly in two days time. The river was quite broad on this stretch and in careful hands, my son Mark skilfully steered our 65ft boat round like a pro. and we began our return journey.
Back at Clifton Lock, it was a new experience for us to be heading upstream and I soon discovered that I needed to improve my rope throwing technique from down in the lock, as my first attempt ended in the water resulting in a soggy rope!
Safely through, we continued onto Culham Lock where we moored just beyond the lock to enjoy an al fresco lunch out on deck. It was so warm and sunny you’d be forgiven for thinking that we were on the Canal du Midi and not mid-October in Oxfordshire.
A stroll across the weirs to a backwater of the Thames and pretty village of Sutton Courtenay followed. It’s definitely worth a visit to admire its beautiful half-timbered cottages and Norman church.
We spent some time looking around the churchyard to find the graves of Prime-Minister Henry Asquith and author Eric Blair (George Orwell) who are both buried there.
It was then back on the boat for the journey upstream through Abingdon where we stopped to take on more water. A little extra manoeuvring followed as we had to pull the boat in tight to reach the hosepipe as our filling point was on the opposite side to the towpath this time. Remembering that water filling took so long the previous day we put the kettle on and had cups of tea and slices of malt loaf whilst we were waiting.
Setting off again on our final stretch of the day we each took our turns at the tiller before mooring up for the night at Sandford Lock. Conveniently it’s overlooked by yet another idyllic pub, The Kings Arms so we only had to cross the walkway over the lock gates to get there.
The pub was doing a good mid-week trade but fortunately there were a few unoccupied tables. I settled on a courgette, pepper and hummus starter followed by a tasty plate of fish and chips accompanied by a glass of lager.
We then returned to our boat, lighting the wood-burning stove once again and ending the evening sitting cosily round it with cups of coffee and some chocolates.
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