[SIC]

Please accept my apologies for my online absence of the past week, I have been on an expedition for Her Maj., inspecting the south coast and a little of Oxfordshire. Most of it passed muster, some of it will, on my recommendation, be temporarily closed while old “management” is hanged, drawn and eighthed, and new management appointed. The Cardinal, bless his little cotton anodes, has been languishing in a …marina.

Yes, yes, I know, but there was little to no alternative. The Cardinal is never towpath-bound without me upon his decks, and a marina was (marginally) safer for the week.

You have no idea just how guilty I felt at leaving the poor Cardinal squashed into a marina mooring while I went off to the south coast via Oxford’s skyline…

Sardines, sardines as far as the eye can see. It is a very nice marina, and mains…