We started September by leaving the Trent & Mersey and joining the Coventry at Fradley Junction. What a place! A canal junction, a pub, two cafes, BW offices, a nature reserve, and a swing bridge. All in the middle of a flight of locks! Also a great place to play boat dodgems !!

We actually sailed through like a bubble of calm in the chaos as boats went in all directions, queued up for locks, and tried to turn round, we just slowly turned right onto the Coventry, somone even opened the swing bridge for us

Then through Tamworth and Polesworth and up the Atherstone locks. After the flight we moored in the middle of nowhere, away from the street lights and were treated to a fabulous starry night.

Through Hawkesbury Junction for the first time and into Coventry. A visit to the cathedral and had a craking lunch. The basin is great, but the lights are so bright it was like sleeping in orange daylight. The next day its back through Hawkesworth again and onto the Oxford canal.

The North Oxford canal is very pretty and rural and a joy to travel, my only complaint would be the towpath which is often very bad and sometimes completely disapears.

Braunston junction looked very interesting. but the mooring on the Grand Union in our direction was so bad we couldn't get in to walk back and take a look! we'll have to check it out on our way back. so we pushed on through Napton junction and onto the South Oxford.

This canal is also beautiful, nice moorings in the pretty town of Cropredy. and then into Banbury. The moorings in Banbury are great! both sides of the canal, next to a new shoping centre, and an easy walk to the interesting old town centre and museums. Unfortunately the local youths let it down by setting 5 boats (including us) adrift while we were all watching England v Russia. Still no harm done and full marks to Banbury for prizing its canal.

Onwards towards Oxford and a overnight with Electricity at Aynho Wharf to catch up on all the washing, then another mooring in the middle of nowhere.

As we tied up the setting sun cast our shadow onto the hedge on the far side of the canal so got very silly and produced some pictures which you can check out in the photo gallery.

An overnight stop at Thrupp with a visit from Mike from where I used to work, then down to Oxford with our son Matthew to help out.

The following day onother son, Christopher joined us as well and we did a mini-ring including a section of the Thames from Isis lock up to the Dukes cut.

Next we found a 48 hour mooring where we could actually get the boat into the bank, (not easy for visitors to Oxford) for a trip over to Maidstone to see Robert, son number three, play Marius in Les Miserables. The show was terrific.

On the 22nd we said goodbye to Oxford and, at Thrupp had a visit from Winchester side of the family. Charles, Jenny, Chris, Victoria, Ben, Ellie, William, not forgetting Max the dog! Great fun, great company, we even took them all for a short trip before moving on for a quieter mooring for the night.

An uneventfull trip back up the Oxford canal which is just as pretty going north but is already noticably more autumnal than when we were going south. Then left at Napton junction and pastures new on the Grand Union.

Its been a while since we had done any wide locks and they looked huge! We shared with a group on a hire boad from Warwick which helped. 23 locks & 2 days later we were in Royal Leamington Spa which, initially we were not keen on, but after a further look is actually a really nice place. We had a couple of days here then moved on a couple of miles into Warwick. Next month we start with the dreaded Hatton flight!