Banbury is one of the few sizable towns along the Oxford Canal and we had known from the start that we were headed towards it. Hearing the name got Nina and I searching our memory for the words of a childhood nursery rhyme. It took us almost an entire day to drag up the words: 

		    Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross,
		    To see a fine lady on a white horse,
		    with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
		    she will have music where ever she goes.

So when we got to the town of Banbury this afternoon we were interested to find that this nursery rhyme is well established in the town. There is a large statue of the lady on the horse with bells on her toes, the nursery rhyme is inscribed on the statue. Various plaques explain the meaning of cock horse (it is one of the children's toy horses - a horse head attached to a stick ). We even learned that Banbury has a Cock Horse Festival

We had dinner at one of the local pubs and moored our boat right in the middle of town.

It rained off and on during the day which made things quite slippery.

On a very lucky, but less positive note

Nina almost damaged herself today. While finishing a transit through one of the many locks she slipped off the side of the boat and fell between the boat and the edge of the canal. Fortunately the boat was moving very slowly and we managed to drag her out of the water/gap quickly. The only injury was a bruised ear. The last photo (taken on our return journey) shows where the incident happened. She fell down between the boat and the brick edge of the canal and had both legs and her hips jammed in the gap. I cannot believe how lucky we were.

Finally, we have passed through a few dozen locks by now so we are getting quite proficient at these.