Banbury, 0 miles, 0 locks
Rain today, so just as well we're not moving. Paul is going back to Hull this afternoon, so we both had a lie-in. Breakfast was sausage sandwiches made with Tesco chicken sausages (due to Paul's Chicken obsession). I'd never had these before and they're not much like ordinary bangers, being very herby and having a much denser texture. They taste nice though and I certainly enjoyed them.
I got the engine going—with much reluctance on its part—then Paul and I moped around the boat all day, talking and drinking tea and generally feeling a bit flat. When the time came, we wandered off to the railway station, which really isn't far away at all (indeed, the canal runs right by the side of it and there's a handy set of stairs to get to it). Paul was getting the Edinburgh train to Doncaster, then changing onto a Hull train. It is a five or six hour journey, including a 30 minute wait at Doncaster. Still quicker than by boat though.
After he left I wandered through the funfair—now in full swing—to Argos. I'd been talking to Paul about how you can only carry a limited amount of shopping when you're on your own and how it can be tricky because it's assumed that you'll have a car. His suggestion was to get a granny-style shopping trolley and after consulting the Argos website, that's what I decided to do.I also wanted to do my laundry and it turned out that there's a launderette just along the road from Argos (Cotton Clouds—47 Broad Street, OX16 5BT), so having popped in to check when they were open and how much money I'd need, I took my trolley back to the boat (still in its box), strapped my laundry bag to my normal trolley and returned to the launderette.
Back at the boat, I had another unsuccessful go at lighting the fire, then used up the cooked sausages left over from breakfast by chopping them up into a tin of Heinz Spaghetti to make a kind of Scumbalina Spaghetti and Meatballs, then attempted to catch up with three days blogging. Bedtime soon, with the luxury of freshly laundered bedding. Bliss!
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