Tuesday 9 September 2014

Source to sea relay. The Morris leg.

This year we took part in the Totally Thames Source to Sea Relay. I bedecked our boat in bunting (not nearly enough as we needed as I'm numerically dyslexic and didn't order a sufficient amount) and we took the cat on an adventure to Oxford.


We moored below Sandford Lock overnight and waited for our turn in the event the following day, day 5 of the relay. Our mission was to safely carry the water, bottled at the source of the Thames in Gloucester, from Sandford Lock to Abingdon Lock as it journeyed down the course of the Thames. Rob, and friend Mark, were set to do this in their capacity as morris men. Rob in the colours of Mr Hemming's morris dancers and Mark in the colours of Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers, thus representing both of Abingdon's morris sides.

Relay handover to Rob.

The bottle of Thames water in the care of mini Rob knitted by Heather.


Before our journey downstream commenced, Rob and Mark put on a little morris performance on the boat roof in honour of the tiny bottle of water.




 I found Lolly hiding under the bed. I assume she thought the boat was under attack by swift-footed hanky wavers. Dancing done, we set off for Abingdon Lock

Where the assistant lock keepers reminisced about their days in the local morris sides, and we handed our precious cargo (the water, not Lolly) over into the safe keeping of the lock keeper for it to continue its journey downstream the following day.

We were all given a rosette to commemorate our part in the relay. Even Lolly has one.


5 comments:

  1. Lolly was right about being under attack by swift-footed hanky wavers, technically. And now you know the real reason for the grass on the roof, to make the dancing safer.

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  2. Glad you hear from you. Sorry about your frightening confrontation, although if you want more like that, the notalwaysright.com site has similar examples. Tried to comment above, I'm assuming you closed comments there.


    Best,

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    1. Thanks, Zhoen. That website gave me a good old chuckle - the stupidity and sense of entitlement of some people! I closed the comments on the above post so that should the gentleman in question wish to reply he can do so on the forum thread in front of those he wished to influence with his original post. He's been pretty quiet so far.

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    2. Very sensible, kinda what I figured. Also, glad he's gone quiet. What a maroon! (As Bugs would say.)

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    3. Me too! I was worried he would be damaging for business and so I'm glad I addressed his wrongs, especially considering the large volume of traffic that visited from the forum. There were more lurkers on that thread than even I imagined. Hopefully he will think before he types in future (although probably not). What a maroon, indeed! (Thanks, Bugs :) ).

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