Thrupp

Somewhere back in the past we came to a decision that whenever possible we wouldn’t cruise on a weekend.  The logic behind this was we would get a good mooring before all the “weekenders” could untie their mooring lines.  We also decided we would finish any cruising around midday.  Again the logic was the hire boaters and others would still be cruising at this time giving us a better chance to grab a good mooring.  So when we arrived at Thrupp around 1.30pm yesterday rather cold from the passing hail storm it seemed a good place to stop.  On the outskirts of Thrupp Jan started frantically reaching for her camera having recognised a moored boat.

No sign of the ‘local entity’ so we pushed on slowly until we reached the 48 hour moorings outside the Boat Inn where we were spoilt for choice as they were all vacant.

A row of terraced stone houses beside the canal and visitor moorings at Thrupp

The CaRT services building can be found adjacent to the lift bridge at the far end of the visitor moorings.  Across the lift bridge (immortalized by Maffi) is Annie;s Tea Rooms.

The facilities building at Thrupp

All very tidy and well presented.  As were the moorings!

Annie’s Tea Rooms looked nice but we decided against spoiling our appetite.

Moored opposite the facilities were two narrowboats in ‘Muddy Waters’ livery.  Readers may recall ‘Muddy Waters’ is a series of children’s books based on narrowboats.

And who should step off the stern of Muddy Waters but Maffi. I first started reading Maffi’s blog when I was researching both narrowboats and employment in Saudi Arabia.  Maffi was recording the building of his narrowboat whilst he was working in Saudi Arabia and was also blogging about living there.

He subsequently joined us for afternoon tea on Waiouru and then we arranged to meet at the Jolly Boatman for a drink (or two) in the evening.  After a light dinner we wandered down the towpath to the Jolly Boatman where shortly thereafter Maffi joined us.  He mentioned on his arrival that Bones ( Bones of Canal Boat magazine) and Alex might be joining us.  Thirty minutes later the five of us were discussing many thing boating!  All too soon three hours had raced past us and Bones needed to leave.  That’s when we realised there were no photos and discovered Bones is adverse to having her picture taken.

You can almost see Bones cringing and Maffi wasn’t raising his fist.  But I did manage to sneak in one photo as Bones was leaving.

After a quiet night we woke early to find a cold and blustery day.  Definitely not a day for moving if at all possible.  Sunday lunch was at the Boat Inn where we again had the roast.  The Boat Inn might be vaguely familiar to Inspector Morse fans as the episode The Last Enemy was filmed near the canal and pub.

Our 48 hours on the visitor moorings finish tomorrow and the weather forecast is for sunshine, so we’ll be heading north.