We’re baaaaack! We made it through the tunnel unscathed. Ah, I bet you were all worried about us, a little. No need to fret, I knew what I was doing. Kind of.

“Sun’s still out” she whispered sexily from amidst a moist cloud of sun cream… “I do hope it stays out and keeps us hot during our journey in to the uber sensual city of Manchester”

Ahem, cue the obligatory moan about the rain… But wait, the bloody suns only gone and come out! And on our blimmin’ ‘day off’. Thank you very much. I celebrated by getting away from all the testosterone on the boat and having my self a day of being a girl. 

Ok, I’m just gonna put it out there… The past few days have been loooong. And a little bit tedious.

Look, I hate to harp on about it, but WHAT’S WITH ALL THE PIGGING RAIN????? We’re being teased with half a day of sun; then back come the rain. Is this some kind of conspiracy? Whatever, I’m not taking it personally. Onwards we go.

And so it rained. Again. What have we done to deserve this? It was beautiful yesterday, when we went from Thrupp to Banbury. 20 miles, 13 locks and 12 hours buy boat to do an hour long car journey.

So, with a little help from our new friends Pete and Chrissie yesterday, we made it to Osney, near Oxford. That was as far as we would go it transpired as, well basically, the water was flowing faster down stream to us than the speed we could travel forwards, so we wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

Skipper Nic's adventures on the Great British waterways have made the news in her home town of Porterdown, here's the article..

What a great day! Following the fantastic gig last night at the Boathouse in Wallingford, featuring Lloyd Langford, Simon Feilder, Phil Nichol, Nicola Redman, and last but my no means least , Tim Fitzhigham, - we encountered an early morning start in the town centre.

Well, what’s with this weather, eh? 

Talk about rain. Now, I’ve heard of ‘trench foot’, but; is it possible to get ‘trench bottom/back of the leg area’ from sitting outside on a wet bench steering? Too much information? Perhaps…

Henley shenanigans, injured swans and, oh yes…some rain.

Well, sorry for neglecting the written blog for a couple of days, I’ve been hobnobbing in Henley dahling. With some expert maneuvering we moored up very close to the floating stage at the festival and settled in for a bit of poshing it up. 

I’m the Video Director/Cameraman/Editor (somewhere in there is some truth) so in short, I make videos about the journey everyday and post them online.

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We went on the tidal Thames! Man, was it windy and rough. We didn’t even know if we were going to get onto the River for various random boring reasons.

Well, yesterday was our first long day of boating, 18.5 miles with 10 locks and, you know what? It went ok. Tiredness towards the end of the day slightly affected my judgment and we did a bit of lovely ‘through the overhanging trees’ driving. We nearly crashed into the bank!

We're starting to get some nice reviews about yesterday's launch - including 4 stars from the London Evening Standard...

Emergency stops, speeding down the canal, 3 point turns... and a sweaty (But hilarious) gig down in little Venice to finish the day. What a way to start! 

This is it folks. After months and months of strategic planning, preparation, organization, boat finding, license obtaining, banner making, gig planning, and crew finding; Tall Tales from the Riverbank, on our boat ‘Meggie’, is about to launch.