At last...

Bablock Hythe was not under water. And the lock was not open, so we had to traipse up and across the lock with all the stuff for Married to the Job, and then make our way to the Ferryman by van. At least this year we managed to end up on the right side of the Thames. Last time, we followed the instructions given by Multimap and ended up with 70ft of water between us and the venue – and a long drive to get on the other side.

The weather was inclement, to say the least – and so we decided to go inside. And had a fine evening, with an audience that more or less filled the room that we were playing in.

The next day – and the lock was… still on red boards. So another journey to Bablock Hythe by van. At least, by now, everything was in the van, so life was much easier. Unfortunately, for some reason, everyone had come to see the show last night. Perhaps they didn’t realise that we were doing two different shows, although I did mention it several times the night before. And – before you think it – we weren’t that dreadful the night before that they would all have been put off. Whatever the reason, there were only 4 people there. I think that that is the smallest audience I have ever encountered. But they had made the effort to come – and Adrian had sold them raffle tickets. So I felt that we ought to do the show, much to the irritation of some of the others. But it is very hard to make a decision to cancel when there are people there who really want to see the show.

Anyway – we did the show. And it was really rather good fun. Honestly!

And this morning, the boards came down. Even though there didn’t seem to be much improvement in the state of the river. In fact, the only thing that seemed to have changed was that the wind had started gusting hard. But we couldn’t stay at the foot of the lock any longer, even though it would have been convenient, seeing as everything was in the van. So off we went – Tyseley steaming at full power up past the weirs, and under the low bridge at Osney. And we made it with ease. In fact, the only real problem was the wind. I suspect that we could have made it just as easily on any of the previous days too, but you have to listen to the lock keepers, after all, they know much more about the river than I do. And even though you feel a little bit daft sitting still when you could have been moving – you would feel even more daft getting into trouble when you have been warned!

The turn into the Oxford was a bit fun though, in the stream, and the wind. But what made it really interesting was that the stream seemed to slacken off just as I was expecting it to push our bows round and into the channel. Oh well!

So now we are tied up in the relative calm of the Oxford, before moving up to Thrupp tomorrow.