To see a fine lady......

Friday 18^th August 2017

Cropredy Marina to Castle Quay Footbridge, Banbury

5 miles, 4 locks

We were up and off early again having filled and emptied as required.  It was sunny and bright, but with a fair wind and only warm when you were in the sun.  The upside was that, once again, we were not in a queue of boats.

As we were leaving the marina we noticed the name of our neighbour (Catflap) and yet the crew members seem to include dogs!  I do like the cat over the stern doors.

Once we were in the first lock at Cropredy a boat came along behind us, probably cursing their bad luck that they had left that little bit too late!  Mind having said that we were always out of each lock before they arrived and we had to fill every one before we could enter, so they lost nothing by being behind us.

Once out of Cropredy the cruise was, for the most part, rural with the odd area of - well I am not quite sure what to say about this!

 This is much more to our liking!

We have noticed a few of these - does anyone know what DIS signifies?

 Just before Hardwick Lock (our last of the day) real life intervenes in the form of the M40

Once at the lock it seems to be rural and remote, but sadly no

There are trains one end and

the motorway at the other

 Now who lives in a house like this?

Dink & Malc!

 He/she had a whole field of good grass to choose from, but no, that little bit over the fence was much tastier!

We were moored in the centre of Banbury by 11:00 - not the most scenic of places, but very handy for the shops and town centre.

This is all new to us, so a wander round Banbury to see what it had to offer was in order.

The bridge to the shopping centre which dominates the canal is just behind our boat.  Over we went just as it started to spit, so we were glad to get under cover.  Perfect timing.  Our first stop was the Tourist Information Office for a town map.  The lady was really helpful and gave us an historic town tour guide as well.  I have to say that the latter was pretty useless to those of us who do not have perfect vision!  The print was so small and faded it was really hard to make out, so some of the following information is a bit of guess work, so may well be wrong!

We think this is/was the town hall.

This we know is the Reine Deer Inn which dates back to the 16th Century.  We gather that the panelling in the Globe Room is worth seeing, but we did not venture in today.

 St Mary's Church which, as is the way of things these days, was closed.

I am sure any visit to Banbury has to include the Cross

and to find that fine lady on her white horse

The Old What?  What a shame they had to place the sign right there

One thing we learnt from the Information centre was that there is a Banbury Cake, something we had never heard of.  A quick google told us what it is (a different shaped Eccles Cake) and that there was a Cake shop in Banbury.  We duly tracked it down only to find it sells icing supplies and makes the most wonderful celebration cakes, but not a Banbury cake in sight!

We made it back to the boat in time to be safely inside before a very fierce thunderstorm.  Once that had passed we headed out to take Monty for a run passing under Tom Rolt Bridge

To the park which had more to it than we had expected

There were also large grassed areas ideal for a good game of ball!

This evening friends, fellow boaters and bloggers, Brenda and Graham (nb Jannock) who live in the area came to call and transported us back to the Wharf Inn, Fenny Compton where we all enjoyed convivial company and a really good meal.  We had to run back to the boat through heavy rain which is still hammering it down as I type.  Hopefully it will have gone by the morning when we will be off again.