Vegetation

When it comes to a knowledge of Botany
I'm a person that has not Gotany
I've been searching through flowers
For hours and hours
But of rare ones I never did Spotany

Such is the standard of my poetry! Talking of such things, down here on the Oxford there are miles and miles and miles of wild flowers, currently mostly meadowsweet and rosebay willowherb, or on the shady bits, the big leaves of what I suppose are. Gunnera - giant rhubarb.

Now some boaters have said to me this week that they think the canal bank is too overgrown and there are not enough places to stop. Hmmph! That's a bit like complaining that all the paintings in the National Gallery are blocking the view of the wall. I counted the number of good mooring stops ( clear straight banks with piling and nice mown grassy bank to sit out) between Thrupp and Aynho, 10 miles, twenty good moorings, many big enough for a number of boats. That's fine isn't it?