We had not intended to stop here today. As we are on our way home now the idea was to stop at Abingdon then Reading. However, the Toe, injured yesterday and not painful was still bleeding a sign of more serious problems. It was considered safest, therefore, by Pat (and I couldn't help but agree) that I should present myself at A&E at the John Radcliffe. We set off at 7:30, did 3 locks self service and arrived at the bridge in a very strong stream about 2 hours later. The only obvious mooring was in front of a small cruiser. The procedure for mooring stern upstream worked a treat, i.e. go into reverse to remain staionary in the required position, nudge the stern towards the bank and the boat moves sideways into the mooring slot attaching the stern rope first. "Tapper" the owner of the boat in front (called Tapper) emerged to express relief, having has a number of near collisions already with boats attempting to moor in this strong stream. He believes that this is all due to water draw off by a turbo-electric project at the old mill. I am not so sure. There is a lot of water coming down anyway and the channel here is very narrow.
Radio Cars Oxford 01865 242424 provided a very rapid response and took me to the hospital where as expected, a number of long waits between visits to reception, triage, X-Ray, medical student, Cas doctor, trauma team and finally nurse kept me out of mischief for 5 hours. The diagnosis was an open double fracture of the terminal phalanx with an intra-articular component. My late presentation limited treatment options to dressings antibiotics and a tetanus jab. A shoe slab support rounded it all off.
By the time I returned to the boat, we felt that it was too late to move on, so an early start tomorrow is on the cards.
Comments