Another acquaintance found.

3 Locks, 3½ miles, 1 lift bridges now moored at Thrupp.
Total of 309 locks and 394½ miles and 16 Tunnels and 4 lift bridges since 5th Nov 2006

Saturday did not turn out as planned but we are not complaining. After a very quiet night out in the country, even though we were close to a railway line, we were up and away by about 9am. We didn’t have far to go to get to the first lock which was set against us. While waiting for it to fill, Brian from n/b Willum of Oseney arrived walking their dog. We had a quick chat and then we were on our way again.
Yesterday we had seen signs advertising England’s only floating farm shop for boaters. It has appeared on BBC TV, ITV and been in 2 newspaper articles and a magazine article.

You just moor alongside and go into the little shop on the back of the narrowboat and shop for fresh free range eggs, home made bread, baking jams and pickles amongst lots of other things and then pay in the honesty box. While there I also found a collection of Morris minor cars and van. They also have 2 horse drawn carriages that can be hired for special events.

The next site on the horizon was the huge satellite dishes which the Nicholsons guide book just lists as satellite earth station.At the next lock, Bakers lock, the canal and river Cherwell become one and it has a flood warning so if the river is in flood you cannot proceed. This goes for about a mile to the Shipton weir lock where the canal and river separate again. It was on this stretch of waterway that we saw our 3^rd Grass snake swimming across the river.
As we came into Thrupp we had to slow right down to a crawl because of the moored boats on both banks and at the BW basin you have to pull into the wharf to let a crew member off to operate a lift bridge which is at a 90deg angle to the wharf. Then try to get away from the wharf and turn the boat 90 degs; to get through the narrow opening. We had barely travelled a ¼ mile when Dot spotted n/b’s No Problem II and Tara (ex No Problem). As luck would have it there was an empty mooring outside the Jolly Boatman which is a 48 hour mooring.
When we knocked on NPII we found Vic Up to his usual tricks of making a mess in the pretense of modifying the boat. Sue had gone into Banbury to get some bits and pieces and would be back soon. Vic was looking for an excuse to stop work so he put the kettle on for a cuppa.
Since then Sue has helped Dot with internet shopping at Tesco’s and a few other little shopping tricks while I did a bit more work on the 2 rear doors which need finishing.
As we are reasonably close to Oxford we decided to stay here overnight and move on tomorrow.