After a peaceful night spent at Cropredy we got up and made our way to the village lock. We dropped down through it and then crawled to the facilities station at Cropredy wharf where we carried out the necessary duties. Water filled and waste emptied by a quarter past eight we headed off in the direction of Banbury.

On our way out of Cropredy we passed by Steve Haywood’s boat “Justice” and vowed to stop and harass him on the way back.

It’s only a short hop and we reached Spiceball park without encountering any moving boats along the way. We tied up and then paid a short visit to the fair in the park, it was quite early but we took the opportunity to buy some artisan bread before we walked into town, briefly stopping at the boat to drop off our purchases. We wandered around Banbury, stopping off for a few hours in the local Wetherspoons of course before walking back to our mooring. We saw that most of the area around Castle Quay was empty so we untied Phoenix III and moved her down into the town. The sun came out and we sat out on the back deck for the rest of the day until finally it sank in the western sky.