Well, an early start was our plan and an early start we had. Somehow we managed to get our boatload of tourists up and ready by 7:00 AM. Wandering the short distance to our first lock of the day, Francine…

Having moored overnight in a very rural part of the Grand Union–Oxford link canal, the towpath looked favourable so Francine and I decided on another start on foot. We cast off Capt. Virginia and walked 5½ miles into the Oxford Canal…

Having pitched up – well, moored up, I suppose, since we’re on a boat – about 5 miles short of Weedon Bec yesterday evening and, there being sunshine and no locks in the offing, this morning Francine and I decided…

Our first night aboard passed very comfortably courtesy of the two fixed-bed “staterooms”. [Boating people, at least American boating people, seem to refer to bedrooms on a boat as staterooms. Who am I to argue?] Having learned our lesson that…

Provisioning Part 2 was done by yours truly and Francine in a dawn raid on our local Waitrose supermarket. Thank Darwin for civilized shopping. Realizing that our boat’s refrigerator would have a limited capacity, we bought food for two days…

Do you remember galoshes? No, neither, it seems, does anyone else – except Capt. and Mrs Virginia who were in search of a pair of waterproof overshoes for the Captain on his boating activities. We spent a good portion of Friday scouring…

Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, that is. Getting on the road at 5:30 AM is not a new experience, though the older I get the less appealing such starts seem to get. Meeting a ship in port instead of an aircraft…

On Saturday we begin a journey on the canals together with two American friends, let’s call them Captain and Mrs Virginia. Since connectivity on a canal boat is most likely to be sporadic, to say the least, I thought I’d…