Wednesday, 1 August 2007

Foul (fowl) deeds at Osney.

Still moored above Osney lock.


The last 24 hours has been a mixture of sadness, happiness and bliss.
To start off one of the pigeon chicks left the nest and managed to fly up to a ledge where all the adult birds congregate. This was OK until another bird spotted it on his/her perch and immediately flew down to shoo the interloper away. The parent birds tried to protect the chick but eventually it was forced off the ledge which was not high enough for the chick to fly and gain altitude. Ultimately it finished up in the water and was swept down stream. It did try to clamber out when it came up against a wall but it was a lost cause. The current eventually caught the chick taking it towards the weir. I tried to catch it in my fishing net before it got to the weir but failed.
Later in the evening the second chick took flight but managed to fly to a very high ledge with plenty of scope for take off. This ledge is not the territory of any other bird so hopefully we won’t have a repeat performance. Nearly 24 hours later and the chick is still there and being fed by the adults.

Not often do you get to do a pumpout direct into the sewer in Oxford

That was the happiness and sadness but the bliss came this morning. City council workmen arrived to collect the sand bags and I asked them if they had some tools to lift the sewer manhole cover so I could do a pump out directly into the sewer.

Well the Irish driver on the front end loader was only too happy to help out in our hour of need. It goes to show that you only have to ask. Within half an hour the tank was pumped out, well and truly flushed and the manhole cover replaced. The self pump out kit has turned out to be a real asset.

The rest of today was taken up with saying farewell to Peter and Pam who have gone to London to collect a rental car for another months touring before returning home.

Sorry we didn’t get any cruising done guys but we did get to see a lot of Oxford. After lunch it was off to the launderette to catch up on some washing. We would normally do this while cruising but as we don’t appear to be going any where for a while this was the best option.

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