After a bit of juggling of narrowboats on Wednesday (29/09/2021) morning we were able to reverse into a mooring under cover in a good position to unload our stuff and clean the boat. We had a debrief with Dave Dare who runs the long term narrowboat hire here.
Tourist information says “Just 20 minutes from Banbury or Oxford takes you to the idyllic Heyford Wharf with its convenient rail station alongside. Our 200 year old working boatyard offers a village shop, gifts, bistro cafe (still closed due to the pandemic), dayhire and holiday boats, and cycle hire. Nearby there is excellent walking, Rousham House and a friendly village pub.”
In the afternoon Steve and Vera did the Heyfords Circular Walk again. We went passed the Bell Inn, stopping for a quick pint of Gladiator cider.
The sun was low in the sky as we walked out of Lower Heyford village.
We walked across the fields to Upper Heyford village.
And we nipped into the Barley Mow which had free dog treats, much to Vera’s delight. A new chef had started today and her meals seemed to be very popular with the locals.
We packed up all our worldly goods and on Thursday (30/09/2021) morning Hilary was picked up and taken to Bicester to collect an Enterprise hire Ford Transit Custom van.
We loaded up and said goodbye to The Duke and Heyford Wharf. It had been a great experience and we had achieved all of our goals. Since 22nd February we had cruised exactly 1,000 miles on the Inland Waterways and negotiated 998 locks.
On the way home we picked up lunch at Gloucester Services on the M5 after stopping for a dog comfort break in a lay-by. It was here that Vera stumbled across a stone circle.
This ceremonial stone circle was erected around 2,500BC. At present there are seventy-odd stones of heavily weathered local oolitic limestone set in a rather irregular ring about 31m across.
They were poetically described by William Stukeley as being “corroded like worm eaten wood, by the harsh Jaws of Time”; they were said to make “a very noble, rustic, sight, and strike an odd terror upon the spectators, and admiration at the design of ‘em”. More recently, Aubrey Burl called them “seventy-seven stones, stumps and lumps of leprous limestone”.
There was also this Wicker Man-like figure.
We got back home to Watchet in the early afternoon. It was great to be back in our house with full size rooms and a proper shower and toilet.
It was also good to be back in a full size double bed (the one on the boat was only 4 foot wide) although after a few Holy Water ciders in Pebbles Tavern, Steve must have thought that he was still on the boat as he clambered over Hilary to get out of bed to go to the toilet in the early hours of the morning.
Vera was delighted to reacquaint herself with her home territory.
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