As Sue has already mentioned, two of her grandchildren, Liam and Chloe are with us for a few days. After work, I drove to Braunston and within half an hour we were out of the marina and heading towards Braunston turn. Opposite the Boathouse pub we saw nb Oakapple and had a passing chat with Richard and Sharon about following each others blogs. Once we had turned on to the G.U. Oxford section, Chloe took the tiller for a while and steered us to just beyond the Wolfhampcote winding hole.

Chloe at the tiller.

We tootled along until we reached bridge 107 where we turned around and headed back in the direction of Braunston. It was soon Liam’s turn to take the tiller, something that he was reluctant to do.

Liam steering.

Nevertheless, he did it and turned out to be something of a natural, needing very little coaching as we passed moored boats and eased under a couple of bridges.

Chloe making pizza for dinner.

Chloe had meanwhile been making pizza dough so that by the time we pulled up near bridge 99, we were able to sit down to dinner.

Setting up.

Liam and Chloe then had a go at fishing but came away empty handed, thankfully we hadn’t been depending on them to catch something for supper!

Waiting for a bite

After an hour, we untied and completed our journey but not without incident. As we passed Oakapple, we were harangued from the cratch by Joe, who along with Lesley was visiting Richard and Sharon. Joe’s mock tirade consisted of him telling me to slow down and that I was not steering a banana boat now!

Another ten minutes and we were tying up to our pontoon in the marina.