17/04/21 - Ye Olde Swan and the Thames Path at Radcot, Oxfordshire

Distance - 6 Miles

Walk Inspiration - Walking Along the Thames Path - Walk 5

Geocaches - 0

Hallelujah - things are getting back to normal.  We can head off for a walk with a better prospect than just finding tupperware in bushes.  Food can be ordered from a menu.  Cask Ale can be delivered in frothy pints to the parched.

I've been looking forward to this day.  Even the sun shines.

Ye Olde Swan in Radcot commands a perfect position - next to the oldest bridge on the Thames - with a suntrap garden, where the boozers and feeders can watch the sailors clean their vessels or head off paddle boarding.  But how are they coping with the new normal?  We'll find out after the walk.

Ye Olde Swan has everything going for it

The Guidebook discusses how this is a tranquil part of the Thames.  The author is not wrong - few are encountered on land, a handful of mariners are saluted and the majority of life is bovine.  Guide Dog in Training Abi enjoyed the freedom and the chance to show off her skills.  Lets hope she get placed in a City.  Or with a strong swimmer.

Heading up stream, we pass WWII Pill Boxes, the only civilisation at Grafton Lock and reach the wooden bridge at Kelmscott to cross and return on agricultural land on the opposite bank.

Someone else living their best life

 

Former WWII Pill Box Sprouting A Tree

A Bovine Encounter on the Way Back

2 hours fifteen minutes and the frisson of what will be on the menu - liquid and solid - returns.  For reasons I won't bore you with, its been 6 months since I have had a decent steak.  Five days since I have had decent cask (of course, I had to visit my local on the glorious 12th).

We take a shortcut into the garden, but are spotted and frogmarched to the track and trace system.  Passports validated, we are shown to a river side terrace.

This will do us

They are setup with an outside bar and kitchen and ordering is slightly complex in that drinks and food are taken separately.  My inquiry as to the real ales is met with a slightly heart sinking Doom Bar, only to flutter at the mention of an Otter.  Not sure which one, but from the look, I will guess at Otter Bitter.

That's delivered in a disappointing plastic glass, which we hope doesn't stretch to the food.  This comes on a paper plate and as our waitress heads off to fetch cutlery, we hope that isn't plastic.

Fear not, it's a wooden knife and fork.

Have you ever tried to eat a thick steak with a wooden knife?

Have you ever tried to negotiate with a 15 year old waitress that their policy may not be well thought out?

She wasn't budging.  Not even when the wooden fork snapped in half.

Like a Premier League Manager after a disappointing result, I am left with the phrase - we go again next week.