As much Thames Path as I needed

Saturday morning, I was able to face a short drive.  I puttered a few miles and parked in the village of Buscot.  I don’t know what the “cot” on the end of all these villages means.  Probably some sort of kin to the cot in cottage, but whenever there’s someone around who might know, I forget to ask.  Buscot snuggles up to and hosts, I think, the highest locks on the Thames.  I started out with a look at the church, then took some farm field paths back to Lechlade and jumped onto the Thames Path.  I walked along that back by Buscot and on to the village of Kelmscot. 

 

The latter was the boyhood home of William Morris who covered the better bits of the late Victorian world with elaborately patterned fabrics and wallpapers.  It was a good place to grow up if you wanted a lot of natural and medieval beauty soaked into your eyes from a young age.  I sat on the ruins of the old village cross to readjust the fit of one of my boots and found myself in the middle of the marshalling yard for a large, multigenerational family expedition.  There were twenty of them easily with children outnumbering adults and moving around too fast for me to get a good count.  A stern woman with one child in a stroller and another on her back was trying to herd the whole bunch and looked moments from adopting Sara’s preferred herding behavior of shooting any sheep that stray. 

 

I walked off quickly lest she try to get me into the pack and walked back towards the path.  On the way there, I ran into a further outrider from the troop – woman with a child in a back pack.  From the way she was looking back towards the village and sort of pacing, I figured she was with the group, but didn’t fancy the chaos, so had gotten out ahead of the main body.  I was so curious, I had to ask, and she confirmed that she was with them but the tone of her voice made it clear she was not of them. 

 

I never saw the whole crew again, so they must have gotten into a boat or driven away in cars.  I can’t believe they would have made better than half a mile an hour in open country if they’d kept walking, and I couldn’t have missed them.

 

From Kelmscot, I walked a few more miles along to Radcot, home to the oldest bridge over the Thames.  If you look hard enough, anyplace can have a superlative all its own.  Most of the way from Kelmscot, there was a black and green narrowboat hanging off my right shoulder.  The engines on those things don’t go very fast and they take some tricky handling on the winding river.  I got a feeling the driver also noticed that he was moving along at walking pace and didn’t much like it.  Every time there’d be a straight bit, he’d pull up even with me, then there’d be a curve and I’d pull away again.  Finally, he had to cycle through Grafton Locks.  I walked on from there after a brief stop for a drink of water and wrestling with my conscience about whether I really ought to let him finish with the lock before going on.  I decided he had a motor and I didn’t so all was fair.  There were a lot of straight stretches, and he got to the water by Radcot faster than I did, but he had to park his boat, so I got my pint at The Swan first.  I scored myself a technical win.

 

I had an adequate meal at The Swan, sitting in the garden.  The sun had come out strong, and people were peeling off outerwear and rolling up pants legs to get all the sun available.  It was easy for me to bag the table in the shade.  After lunch, I walked on a little bit further, but I was getting a little bored with walking along the river and about half as tired as I wanted to be.  I turned around and retraced my steps.  Most of the boaters were at lunch, so I had the river mostly to myself.

 

There were birds around in great profusion – especially swans.  The swans were either mating or fighting over territory because they did a lot of charging and dive bombing at each other and general chasing around.  I also saw some grey herons, lots of little birds I couldn’t identify, and I heard cuckoos who sound just like the ones in clocks except for not being able to tell time.  Having the river on my left hand instead of the right, entertainment from the birds, and the absence of a chugging narrowboat engine all removed the boredom from the rest of the trip, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. 

 

I had tea and a slice of fruitcake that was almost like German lebkuchen at a shop in Buscot.  I drove around to a few towns trying to find a cash machine.  Lechlade failed me, but Farringdon met my needs.  I also found The Sadlers – the companion deli to Herb’s restaurant and bought myself provisions for Saturday evening dinner.  The rest of last night was journal composition, a nice visit with Pat who wanted to know what I’d liked most about my stay so she could recommend it to other guests, then dinner with a very silly American series about a big earthquake in California on the television (Earthquake 10.5 – perhaps prepared exclusively for the export market, as I had certainly never heard of it).  I would have preferred to see something silly and British, but the only British things on were sports and dating related game shows so vulgar they offended even me.

 

I am now sitting in a Starbucks in Oxford so when I finish with this I can take advantage of the WiFi hotspot here to check mail and post this journal and perhaps even some pictures.  I’m parked near the rail station where Sara is due in about two hours.  On to Wales next.