Was looking out of the window by the galley sink on 6 April when 'my' duck emerged from behind Justin's boat followed by a flotilla of day old ducklings. Rushed to take some pics and tried to count them. Finally came up with twelve.
Next day, there has been no sign of the ducklings but one of the other pairs of ducks discovered my bird feeder and of course cleared it right out.
Been very remiss about updating the website so I've decided to cut my loses and start from [almost] where we are now in the hopes that I can backtrack later.
The main new year's excitement has been the local flooding and the varying water levels on the canal that this has caused and the flowing of the field drain culvert which is on Cribbit's mooring spot. After one very noisy and bouncy night when the cuvert was running like mad and I had to get up at 0200 to loosen my bow warp to give some space for the flow I have moved cribbs forward a few metres and put her on long warps to accommodate changing water levels.
Since I have done that it hasn't been necessary of course. I've also been monitoring the river Cherwell levels at Cropredy bridge on the gov.uk flood information service and the first slide below shows the water level at Cropredy Bridge just after the culvert was flowing. Experience suggests that the culvert flows when the water level is above 2 metres.
The culvert takes excess water off the field that runs alongside the towpath. In the summer, when it is dry, it is a caravan club campsite called Bridge Meadow.
Cropredy Bridge is also know for a
desultory battle 3 links of the civil war which was fought across and around it. Also close by is what they describe as
The largest Jensen specialist in the world. The
village website has more details about village activities.