Two wet days sees a visit to Oxford Cruisers at Eynsham: Song & Dance is now the proud possessor of an anchor and chain: let’s just hope we never have to use it! Time to bin those old risk assessments…

A night moored up at Osney Bridge (you can see why the Upper Thames has so few big boats: it was a tight-ish fit even for us). Convenient for a quick trip into the Oxford shops, then off down river again towards Abingdon. Osney appears to have five streets: East Street, North Street, South Street, West Street and Bridge Street, which has a refreshing simplicity about it. Except the Bridge Street is some way from the Bridge. Oh well.

The river’s changing: clearly they take their rowing seriously hereabouts (even if we didn’t mow down or even see a single rower), the locks are getting bigger, and the river wider. Maybe we need some risk assessments on the thorny issue of life jackets or flotation devices. Maybe.

At one of the locks, just as the gate was opening, there was a brief turquoise flash by the bow, a modest “splash” then a kingfisher flew out of the water with a small fish in his beak and headed into the bankside bushes, quite unconcerned by boats and people. Lovely.