Like a comfy pair of slippers!

‘Eileen’ snug in her Winter mooring. It’s early morning, and the stoves of other boats are sending out plumes of smoke as fresh coal is added.

Morning on Grimsbury Wharf and a very particular pastoral symphony.

 

Birdsong mingles with the shoosh-whoosh of cars racing the Hennef Way to the motorway; the scutter&flap of ducks dressing feathers enriches the steady thrummthrumm of boat engines charging depleted batteries.

 

Wickes’ carpark is filling with weekend DIY-ers, car doors slam; in the garage the sounds of tarting up cars and touting for trade; and above the activity of the canal an occasional loud wheeze of steam erupting from the chimneys of the ‘coffee giant’-  the huge factory that dominates this end of Banbury and produces a coffee-coloured, coffee-flavoured powdery coating that dusts the boats.

The yard, looking spick and span after it’s Winter hedge-trimming and de-weeding. It’s always a good feelin to return to ‘The Arm’ after the pressured journey up the motorway. Immediately life begins slowing down toward the calming, and more sane ‘Canal Time’.

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