The Dreaded Flies

Sunday started with the Cropredy church bells, this continued for about 2 hours. Now I like church bells as much as the next man, but 2 hours gets a bit monotonous. We walked to the local Spar shop (quite a good shop with quite a wide range of consumables) and topped up with supplies before heading back towards Fenny Compton. It was a longish day with 9 locks before we were back onto the Oxford summit.

As we came through lock 22 a chap heading to Cropredy said he had encountered a swarm of horse flies between lock 22 and 21. He was right, in the half mile between the locks I got bitten 4 times, Jan stayed in the boat as she reacts badly to horse fly bites usually resulting in large blisters.

We arrived at Fenny Compton to find that all the moorings were occupied. This was the second time in four days we had arrived to find nowhere to moor. There are two 14 day and one 48 hour moorings here, probably more than at Cropredy which is a more interesting place to visit. So why so popular?

Three of the five boats moored on the 48 hour mooring were the same boats that were moored there on Thursday. At least 5 boats on the 14 day moorings looked like they had not moved in 14 weeks. I assume its popularity stems from a large car park and a main road with a bus service. I am sure this practice does the pub no favours as we finally moored way past the end of the long term moorings and spoke to at least half a dozen boats that wanted to go to the pub but couldn't find a mooring.

Monday was a lazy day, a couple of hours ambling through the beautiful countryside of the Oxford summit in glorious sunshine (plus the odd encounter with more horse flies). We moored on a remote spot below bridge 122 just after lunchtime, then out came the chairs and parasol.

Moored on the Oxford Summit

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun, with the odd boat that moored for lunch then moved on. By evening we were alone, watching the sun set and listening to the birds singing.

It's a hard life afloat!