Banbury

Yesterday we set off in the morning - the varnishing task left for the day was the bathroom and we wanted to give it a change to dry out before starting.

We left the overnight mooring just after ten o'clock and continued towards Banbury. There was nothing particularly eventful other than it soon began to rain - at times quite heavily.

Mike promised Christine that we would stop at one o'clock for lunch - she obviosuly did not believe him as she was most surprised when, around Adderbury, with half a minute to go, he pulled into the bank and moored up!

After lunch we continued into Banbury, calling briefly at the services below Banbury Lock for water, elsan and rubbish as usual. They we found a good mooring outside the Castle Quay shopping centre where we have moored several times before.

Whilst Mike began work on the bathroom, Christine went shopping and, as well as some food items, returned with a replacement casserole dish for the one which decided to split into two pieces a couple of days ago.

Despite a large building in the way, the satellite reception was OK.

The next morning (7th October) we began by visiting M&S. The reason we went was because Mike needed some new socks - in addition we returned with three new shirts, a tie and a suit!

Well after mid day we cast off and went up to the nearest winding hole to turn around and then came back down. It was only the briefest of stops at the service station but we did not go a lot further before a lunch stop.

Although the morning had been fine and quite pleasant, by by rain returned and we did not go too far before calling it a day and mooring up for the night earlier than usual. This gave Mike a chance to sort out some new coax cables using the connectors we bought earlier in Banbury. This makes it much easier to set up the sat dish as it avoids the need to use screw in F connectors. (The problem, apart from taking time and being fiddly, is that it is too easy to move the dish and have to start all over again!)