A Fantastic Weekend

The boat was spick and span for our visitors over the long weekend.  Andrew had even polished both sides of the boat, although the lovely sparrows that used our tv aerial as a resting spot, soon christened the one side :-)

I have to say that we had a fabulous weekend with Jody and Gina.  Dinner out on the Friday night at Colleys in Lechlade was delicious and the service wonderful. We even managed to fit in one dessert between 3 of us :-D  Definitely a place to go if you ever find yourself in Lechlade.

Saturday and Sunday we zipped around the Cotswolds at what felt like thousands of miles an hour.  After tootling around at 4 miles an hour for so long, a car seems to fairly fly along the roads.  I can see now why the Cotswolds are renowned for their beauty, the rolling landscape dotted with picturesque villages built using the creamy honey coloured limestone rock is quite something.

We visited two of the villages, Bibury and Burford.  Bibury for the pretty village and Burford for a bit of window shopping.  All in all a great day, topped off with fish and chips for dinner and a lot of silly conversation and laughter.

Spot the trout - River Coln, Bibury

More trout spotting

Grey Wagtail - with lunch

and yet more trout spotting

There - spot the fishermen :-)

Arlington Row, Bibury

Swan Hotel, Bibury

River Coln, Bibury

High Street, Burford

Fly shopping

Burford

Burford Parish Church

High Street, Burford - going out of town

We had heard about one of the best whiskey shops in the UK and naturally could not miss this out. It just so happened to be a few miles up the road from Lechlade and had a bunch of whiskeys available for tasting, just not the £1500, 45 yr old single malt!  According to the owner they stock about 1100 different whiskeys, including some rare and collectable varieties and are still adding more. As you can expect it helped to clear out a bit of that excess in the bank account ;-)  Arkwright's is absolutely the place to go if you love whiskey AND they ship all over the world as well as the UK.

The remainder of the weekend for the guys was taken up with trout fishing. Jody managed to catch one on Monday at the Lechlade lake.

 

Andrew fishing @ Busheyleaze

Busheyleaze

and for Gina and I a bit of window shopping in Lechlade and Cirencester along with a rather tasty waffle at He Says She Waffles in Cirencester and then a bit of R and R after all that walking at the Roman Ampitheatre. A bit of info extracted from the internet - The earthwork remains of one of the largest Roman amphitheatres in Britain, built in the early 2nd century.
It served the Roman city of Corinium (now Cirencester), then second only in size and importance to London, and had a capacity of around 8,000 spectators. Later fortified against Saxon invaders

Silver St, Cirencester

Roman Ampitheatre, Cirencester

lily called Lords and Ladies

Thanks guys for a great weekend.

Andrew and I are now making our way, very slowly, back north. First though we travelled up as far as we could on the navigable Thames. We can now say that we have cruised all that we can of the Thames, in a narrowboat that is.  Just not the bit from Brentford to Limehouse, as that requires a VHF radio and radio license.

Farthest navigable Thames River. A canal used to leave here through the now disused lock behind the small bridge and willow trees on the right.

Footbridge over the Thames

Some unusual looking ducks at Lechlade. Looks like they are wearing caps and waistcoats :-) 
looked them up on the internet and they are a breed called Indian Runners. Can be white or multi-coloured

Side window visitors when we stopped to fill with water at Grafton Lock on the Thames

Canada goslings with mum's and dad's

A Curlew

Our plans are flexible, other than we would like to visit as many canals as we can that we have not yet seen. So for now we are heading to Napton Junction and possibly Northern Oxford Canal, but who knows we might change our minds again :)


For now we are chilling out on a rural section between Enslow and Lower Heyford, while the rain falls and the wind blows.