Well 2010 was.......

Well it was.....It was one of those years - we had left Kings Marina at Newark at the end of March heading for the Kennet and Avon via the Oxford Canal and The Thames.  Richard had been working for British Sugar all winter and was getting tiller happy desperate to get the boat out and about.  The plan was to go along the Kennet and Avon Canal, so went down to Oxford.  This is a beautiful canal with heavy lift bridges and cummulating in our mooring in Oxford itself for a while. Due to high river levels on The Thames from Lechlade we had to sit and wait for the rain to stop and the levels to drop, which took all week.
Then down the Thames to Reading.

For the eagle eyed out there, this is going downstream, but there's a story behind that which we'll get to later.
When we turned off the Thames up the Kennet, it was still in flood and did we let the poor old Lister have it!  In the middle of Reading the river runs through the shopping centre where there is a traffic light system to control the passage of boats, as those coming downstream tend to be pushed along swiftly.We didn't see the switch for the traffic light, until we were level with them, so me on the tiller and Richard 'ballet dancing' on the gunwhale, we hovered at the side and pressed the button.  It was a good job we did as a narrowboat came broad side under the bridge from around the bend!  Missed us by about 2 feet!

The K and A is a lovely canal , the east side is not so busy and is showing signs of lack of use and maintenance.  I tended to be on the tiller as I found the locks too much like hard work!  We did do lots of cycling though in case it sounds like I was being a diva!