Still dreaming about our wonderful weekend

The moorings near Shipton Bridge must be one of the quietest places that we have stayed in. No traffic noise whatsoever and only the occasional train or light plane to be heard in the distance. So we seemed to get a very good nights sleep for a change! Although we have woken up to a rather dull drizzly day which has me dreaming of our weekend adventures.

The camp-fire warmed our fronts and made our boots steam!

Is Maffi making a wish here?

Bones got all puffed up for the return journey, mind yer ead!

Molly thinking, I wish he'd cut the chat or we'll be off without him!

Locking down onto the River Cherwell which was nearly up on the red board, it was good fun going faster.
I did find that Shipton Weir lock gates were extremely hard to operate though.  I now have a short list of items that need BW's attention so I will be informing them by e-mail, then we'll wait to see how long it takes them.
They do seem to waste an awful lot of money on environmental improvements we've found. Is there really any need to install soft coir banking areas along the tow-path side of the canal to encourage wildlife?
From what we have seen the water-birds seem to prefer to be on the opposite side. There are so many places along the tow-path where it is imposible to moor up that need to be improved.