Many Meetings: Annie and Paddy in Banbury.

Friday 8th and Saturday 9th October 2021 from Cropredy to Kings Sutton.
In anticipation of getting MM to Aynho, we drove the Touran from home to Aynho and, after the mandatory coffee and a bacon butty from the Brew Box and a visit to Simon and Matt in the workshop, we left the Touran there took a taxi to Cropredy.

The mooring at Cropredy has been lovely but now we need to get MM back to Aynho where she is booked in for a partial repaint on Monday.

Turning out of the marina is always tricky as visibility is always limited. Luckily, the other boat was going north and we needed to turn south.

Nice to see working boats still plying their wares on the canal. This one sells coal, gas and diesel along this stretch of the canal.

Friday evening's mooring was in the centre of Banbury. As we needed provisions, we set off early on Saturday morning to walk to Waitrose, where we rewarded ourselves with breakfast in their excellent café.

Annie and Paddy drove all the way up from Lydney to meet us in Banbury, where we had booked lunch at the "Church House". We got a bit lost walking there but it was worth finding it as the food was excellent. We walked back through St Mary's churchyard, which has some of the tallest and widest maple trees that we have seen. M tried to photograph them but they were far too big!

Banbury has some very fine old buildings along the main street, but sadly the modern Castle Quay shopping centre has completely isolated the town from the canal.

Back on board MM, Annie and Paddy joined us as we went through the town lock.

After the lock, they said cheerio, as they needed to set off on the long drive home. It was lovely to see them and so kind of them to drive so far to see us. Happily, we shall see them again next month as we plan to go down to Lydney.