Ten days to Banbury

Pat, my wife and first mate has not been well these last few months.  The canal boat is Pat’s sanctuary but trips to the hospital rather keep us tethered to base, so when a window pops up we grab it.   There’s only so much you can do in a short period.  Our last trip was a visit to the Ashby.  A cruise short of the full length.  I wanted to do the London Ring again, but for a press on at all costs hire boater (as we once were) this is doable in two weeks.  I would rather take six and enjoy it.   So we will content ourselves to Banbury and back.   That should give us time to linger and enough locks for the time being.  After setting up the slow cooker with tonight’s meal we left Barby Moorings just around 8 a.m.   From the start there was opposite direction traffic seemingly in clutches.  I guess its the usual logic: the fastest at the back.  At Braunston Turn we turned right and pressed on aiming for just short of Wigrams Turn.   That turned out to take in all 4-1/2 hours.   This section is part of the Grand Union Canal and is blessed by loads of metal piling.   This attracts transiting moored boats, not long term stuff, and we have in the past fallen for its charms as we have today.   Sheet metal piling allows us to use our ready made mooring lines.  For the stern we have just an exact length of rope to give us a 45 degree fix with an eye for the offside stern dolly and the other end spiced into a robust piling clip.  This is pulled tight by the bow mooring which is a little bit more complicated as it includes a pully arrangement the pulling end going on the T stud in the normal way.