Monday, October 08, 2012

Banbury Canal Day


Sunday was warm and sunny, and just perfect for the Banbury Canal Day.
We had a lazy start to the day, then strolled along to the wharf after an early lunch. The event was very well attended. Last year, they had over 10,000 people, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were well in excess of that this year.
(courtesy of Banbury Guardian)
There was lots to see and do. There was a large craft market, where we bought a beautiful small wall mirror framed in stained glass, and some stained glass earrings for Grace, and we bought three Welsh cheeses from The Cheese Boat.
There were charity stalls, many and varied food stalls of course, and musical and dance entertainment at three venues. Particularly entertaining were the Alvechurch Morris, who danced an unusual form of morris dancing we'd not seen before, using stout sticks. Very funny, and not a little skilful!

All this along the canal, where people thronged and somehow failed to fall in! Boats featured to a small degree – some visiting narrowboats entering a competition for best-dressed, and children in canoes – and Tooley's Historical Boatyard put on a show of old engines, and talks on canal-related subjects, held in the dry dock, with rows of seats in the dock, and the speaker standing on the front edge. It's also used like that as a theatre!
Canal Day was an excellent occasion.

Monday morning was, in contrast, dull and drizzly. We gave Tooley's time to put things back to normal after yesterday, then drove slowly the mile from our mooring back to the wharf. John fitted the replacement part on the fuel primer pump and adjusted our stern gland, which had been leaking even worse since he first did it for us. By the time we'd had lunch and done some shopping, it was three o'clock, and we decided to stay here until tomorrow. The drizzle was back, and we had a good mooring, so it didn't seem worth moving just another couple of hours. Cropredy would be where we would have to stop then, and that didn't have quite the same attraction as where we were. So we settled in for the rest of the day, and Grace went shopping again, this time for a jacket.

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