An unexpected day!

 So about 9.30am, I walked the couple of hundred yards to Isis lock to set it ready to go down onto the Thames, and had let the water into the lock and suddenly realised the the lights were flashing red on the sign that explained what the navigability of the Thames was like.  Red means that you cannot join the river.  So back the boat went to our mooring, and we all looked at the website which tells you about the safety of navigation on the river and it had not been updated since yesterday. Updating should happen by 11.00am.  I had a zoom call with the college in Ghana at 10.30am, so the rest of the team went off to the nearest lock on the Thames to find out what the situation was.  They came back as I finished my zoom call having visited the lock and discovered that we might not be able to get onto the Thames until Thursday which was not quite what we wanted to hear.  

We were also concerned about the levels of diesel we had and the need for a pump out.  Diesel fuels the heating as well as the engine, and so we were using it up even if we weren't travelling anywhere. Chris phoned a boatyard we had passed on Thursday to check they had diesel. They had been expecting a delivery on Friday, but the delivery vehicle had broken down so they were still out, but hoping to have a delivery today or tomorrow!! Isn't life complicated!! 

So, in the end we decided to go back up the canal as far as Thrupp, so tomorrow morning we would be ready to go up the Cherwell bit of the canal which was also experiencing rising water levels, with the plan to be at the boatyard tomorrow to get diesel.  This meant we had to go through the Isis lock which is the last one on the canal and then turn round in water part filled by a little tributary coming from the Thames, so it was flowing quite fast. 

We held the front of the boat onto a jetty and pulled the front forward so I could turn us back 360 degrees to drive us back into the lock we had just left. That all worked well and we set up back up north along the canal we had come down on Thursday.  As we passed the boat yard to our right, we asked them if they could sell us diesel and indeed they could and did and also provided a pump out.  We were feeling pretty smug now, so we could set off up to Thrupp without a further agenda of getting up the Cherwell etc. etc.  

And so we went back up the four locks, and through 3 lifting bridges and as far as the lifting bridge at Thrupp where we filled up with water.  The moorings we had had at Thrupp coming south were all full but we found another one at a pub about half a mile further south.  So we will see what tomorrow brings.  We think we can find some distractions in Oxford if we have to moor there for another day.  The concern is that we get onto the Thames and then have to moor up as more rain lands and fills the river.  We shall see! 

All of this is what people must have had to contend with when they ran their businesses centuries ago.  Perhaps they were more gung ho with the river flow, who knows!!

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