High speed Herbie

I always wanted to own a listed property, and this morning I did.  The river had dropped some inches overnight and Herbie was grounded and listing 5 degrees to starboard.  I could tell we were askew even lying in bed, we must have some sort of internal spirit level I suppose. The mooring ropes were as tight as an Ernie Ball 0.016 guitar string tuned to high E - believe me that's tight.  In fact you could probably have played tunes on the mooring ropes.  Must try that next time.

Stepping outside to examine the problem, Kath and I went into a huddle and formulated a plan of escape which, highly unusually, worked.  I didn't even get stranded ashore with a gangplank.  Wonders will never cease.  It was all to do with which rope to let go first and how to get the current to help us.  Anyhow, we were soon heading back towards Oxford.  At some speed I must say.  With a good current behind us we achieved speeds hitherto unknown to Herbie.  At one point today we achieved four point nine miles per hour (as measured on my home coded Android Herbiesoft Speedo).  And they said the human body wouldn't survive such velocity.

Stopping only at locks, at one of them to buy a Thames visitor licence, we motored from Swinford to Abingdon, that's about 15 miles and 7 locks.  We don't often do that in a day.  Talking of Thames visitor licences, some of you will know that they give you a card to show in the boat window.  They used to give you two, one for each side, but now it's only one because naughty people used to pass one of them on to a friend (or customer I suppose).  Tut tut.

The majority of locks were on self service, but at Abingdon lock there was very cheery old gentleman (although come to think of it that could describe me except for the cheery bit , and the gentleman bit).  Anyway, he was saying how the proportion of narrowboats to plastic cruisers had changed over the years.  According to him they used to see three tupperware boats to every narrowboat, but now it's the other way round.

So here we are moored on the park in Abingdon, in a convenient spot for Waitrose.  It's good to know that anytime we want some quinoa, it's only a short walk away.

Tomorrow we plan to sample the delights of Wallingford.  I discover that after the end of September they stop charging a tenner a night for mooring.  Result!

By the way,  a couple of days ago we spotted this boat with a novel way of minimising anode wear.

Do you think someone should tell him?