Whatever happened to Autumn? Leaving Abingdon for Oxford on a lovely, warm, sunny and calm day, there seemed little evidence of any leaves turning, although some trees looked a bit down in the mouth. Over a month ago the horse chestnuts looked as though they were turning, but haven’t done much except drop conkers, and we haven’t seen a swallow or martin for quite some time. There are a few leaves in the water, but hardly any really. Everything’s very confused.

You often meet interesting people on the water. A good example: mooring up for lunch just above Iffley Lock on the outskirts of Oxford, a young woman – late 20s, early 30s we’d guess – who was sitting the bench scribbling in a large notebook looked up and offered to take a rope. The kettle was going on so coffee was offered and accepted and we all got chatting.

Turned out she was enjoying the good weather sitting on the bank “writing a novel”, that having returned from teaching in New Zealand and having failed to make much progress writing and working in Manchester she’d recently cycled down the canal system and was now living in Oxford just writing. A novel about a woman with mental health problems it would seem. Amiable, cheerful, chatty, interesting… we never found out whether she was being sponsored in some way or starving in a garret somewhere. Her name was Kate, don’t know what the novel was called… wonder if she’ll ever get published. Guess we’ll probably never know.

Meanwhile, Iffley Lock not only has an unusual by-pass for canoes and rowing skiffs, but the Environment Agency are obviously struggling to recruit decent volunteer lock keepers these days.

Surprisingly, it’s more interesting than you might think coming back the way you came: you see everything on the canal from the other side, so to speak, and spot lots of things you missed first time round, and the weather conditions will be different.

After leaving Crofton top lock, we soon found ourselves outside the Beam Engines establishment again, end of season – a very different place from the hue and cry of the previous Gala Weekend we’d made a day trip to. Even though we’d been around here several times recently, it’s a fascinating spot in lovely countryside, so no hardship involved.

Second breakfast in the cafe saw us setting out on a short circular walk up the Roman road to Wilton Windmill then via the highly amenable Swan at Wilton for first lunch, then back to the boat at Crofton. Or at least that was the plan.

Mapless in Wilton, the Roman road and route to the windmill were no problem. But even the local signs are bit ambiguous about the way from Wilton to the Crofton Beam Engines where we were moored, and the largest lake in Wiltshire lies between the two.

Maybe it was the lunchtime Guinness and scrumpy, but we took the wrong footpath out of Wilton, leading round the wrong side of the lake, with no way back across the outlet to the boat. After an hour wandering apparently in a large circle round muddy fields and a sewage works we were pretty much back at the pub, and found the correct path on Take 2. Oh well, probably needed the exercise.

Overnighting in Great Bedwyn, we were joined again by Joe for the pleasant run down to Hungerford – it’s much easier with another crew member, particularly with someone who’s so knowledgeable about the canal, River Kennet and local gossip.

The route runs alongside the River Dunn, which at one point dives under the canal through a circular weir…

You can see the Gunnera is really dying back now, and if you look very carefully at the full-size picture (click the mouse on the small picture) you can see a grey wagtail watching us drift past.

Approaching Hungerford over their commons, Hungerford Marsh Lock presents an interesting challenge, having a swing-bridge right in the middle of the lock.

With CaRT’s minimalist approach to mowing the grass these days, it’s bad enough with anti-social owners who let their dogs fowl the lock area without clearing up the excrement, leaving the long grass booby-trapped. But a herd of cows wandering everywhere adds a whole new dimension, particularly the one who turned, reversed and lifted it’s tail over the canal just as First Officer Fran was on short finals to the gate. The bilge pump in the front well-deck had a narrow escape.

Incidentally, if you look closely, you can just see the tower of Hungerford church rising over the distant tree line. There is some debate as to whether Hungerford or Kidderminster church is the nearest to a canal; I reckon Hungerford wins by a few gravestones, but in the interests of political balance, here’s an otherwise irrelevant photo of Kidderminster church taken a few years ago.

I’m clearly slow off the mark. As  the cygnets get older and bigger and moult into their snow-white adult plumage, it has only just occurred to me ( some half-century or more late) that I – and all the other listeners to Uncle Mac – have been lied to all those years ago by Danny Kaye. Came as quite a shock.

There once was an ugly duckling, with feathers all stubby and brown

is bad enough, as most cygnets are pretty much grey, although to be fair you do see the occasional one which is a rather muddy brown kind of grey, if you see what I mean. But

And he went with a quack and a waddle and a quack
In a flurry of eiderdown

is clearly rubbish. Trust me, cygnets don’t quack: they whistle. And surely it would only be a flurry of eiderdown if the ugly duckling was an eider duck or some seriously unusual cross-dressing had been going on.

Don’t know which is the bigger shock. Danny Kaye lying, or me being so slow on the uptake concerning an iconic piece of music from my childhood.

I mean, what else from Uncle Mac is false? The Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly? High Hopes? Three Billy Goats Gruff? Even – may your deity forbid – Sparky’s Magic Piano? And now Uncle Mac is even being mentioned in connection with the Jimmy Savile sex scandal. With such rampant iconoclasm in these troubled times, just what can one believe these days?