'Tis Boxing Day

Friday, 26 December 2008 19:04

'Tis Boxing Day. A Boxing Day tradition is the "walk to walk off the excess". Ever ones for tradition, we went for a walk this afternoon! The sun shone on the Oxfordshire countryside, making the golden bricks of the Oxfordshire cottages glow like warm honey.

We explored a footpath around Wroxton village, avoiding the mole hills and sheep droppings. We then drove to Burton Dassett Country Park. From the top there were some wonderful views and we thought we could see Napton Hill and the windmill, and at least one accommodation bridge on the Oxford Canal.

We were fascinated by the kite boarders. The wind was just right and they were speeding up the hills and down the dips at a rate of knots. There were plenty of walkers (and dogs) well wrapped up against the wind and enjoying the sunshine.

Paul Balmer (Nb Waterway Routes) very kindly sent me this photo of "an old friend" he spotted in Birmingham the other day:
Our previous boat, share boat Nb Twelfth Night:
He also pointed out a problem with our RSS feed to those using IE as their browser. We hope we have sorted it out now.

Perhaps it bears repeating the reason our boat is called Epiphany. You are all familiar with the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas". The Twelfth day after Christmas is unsurprisingly Twelfth Night! All the Christmas decorations should come down and the next day is January 6th - Epiphany.

If you attend Church on the Sunday nearest 6th January you may well celebrate the "Feast of the Epiphany". The Kings will move from the back of the church (if they have not already started on their journey towards the East end) and arrive at the Nativity Crib: a reminder of the Wise Men (aka Kings) who travelled from afar to see the baby born to be King.

So what more obvious to name our boat after Nb Twelfth Night, than Epiphany? The Wise Men followed a star - hence our logo of a on the bows and over the 'i' in Epiphany.

Our Epiphany became Nb Epiphany - a wondrous realisation of something extraordinary in an ordinary world. We realised our dream and we think our Epiphany is extra ordinary. However we are discovering that our country is actually extra ordinary too when viewed from the stern of a narrowboat.

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