Slight change of plan

We must say a big thankyou to all who have given us tips and advice on charging the laptops when  moving Sun Dance on 13th. Looking at all the good ideas we now find we don't need to use any of them after all. We had a bit of a brainwave yesterday when we remembered that in the Anglo Welsh brochure, Merlin also has a 'no' next to 240v. Of course Merlin has a socket as the TV plugs into a 240v supply. With this in mind, we gave Anglo Welsh at Oxford a call. Sure enough Sun Dance does have a socket but not one advertised as too many hirers have blown the inverter trying to charge laptops without running the engine. With words of 'you will only use the socket when traveling' ringing in my ears and my assurance that we would, he said he would show us where the socket was on our arrival . So goody, seems I will be able to continue with the blog while away after all.

While I was on the phone to Ollie (manager at the Oxford base), I mentioned the stoppage at Roundham lock. He was unaware there was a problem until I mentioned that Ian had looked at the stoppage list and found out the lock at Kidlington was due to reopen on the 13th.  (stoppage started 2nd November).  After Ian had given C&RT a ring to see what time we could get through, we were told that they didn't envisage opening the lock before 4.30pm. I immediately got back to Ollie to say our estimated date of arrival at Tardebigge (18th/19th) would not now happen as we would effectively loose a day and how urgent was it to get the boat back in 6 days. No problem at all it seems, as it was never an urgent move after all!!!! So it will more likely to be Saturday 21st when we arrive which will give us a good 8 days to do the move.  It all depends on how quick we can get through the 104 locks and how many leaves foul the prop!

On my walk this morning (dodging the rain showers)