Days 84 to 90 Oxford

On the way to Cropredy Marina, one of those fluke occurrences common to boaters when the end of the bathroom blind fell off and bounced into the loo.  Not a big deal in a house, but in a boat with a macerator, it could have been an expensive disaster!  Many phone calls later, an engineer agreed to meet Catnap at the marina - phew.

Then as we left Banbury, a hapless boater managed to lose a tyre which got itself stuck under one of the lock gates on our route.  The lock was closed, hours of tense waiting ensued, the tyre was extracted by CRT staff with huge rakes (according to eyewitnesses) - but too late for our loo rendezvous.  Fortunately, an engineer on site the following day fitted us in.  Phew again!

End of the line!  The southern end of the Oxford Canal where it joins the Thames - where, if we'd come this far by boat, we'd have turned and re-entered the canal to come back north

Isis Lock, the last before the Thames

Green man

Dappled girl

Canalside conservation area in central Oxford

Bridge with ornate streetlamp

 

The very first Oxfam shop (and the UK's first charity shop) opened here in 1948

Seventeen 'Emperor' heads outside the Sheldonian Theatre

Bridge linking two parts of Hertford College, popularly known as the Bridge of Sighs

The Radcliffe Camera, a famous landmark is an 18th century circular library

Which don inspired this gargoyle?

St Sepulchre's Cemetery "the gloomiest and most enthralling of the Oxford burial places"

 

...and one of the tombs, of a porter of one of the colleges for 44 years

Central Oxford residential street of gothic Victorian terraces

Skyline, dreaming spires