We set off just as another boat arrived and were glad to be out of its way as it was moving rapidly into the space we had just vacated. We worked through King’s Lock rather than returning to the Dukes cut which had been our route in to the Thames. The morning slowly brightening, we were in sunshine by the time we reached the lock before Port Meadow on the outskirts of Oxford.. The sign for the lock had said we should operate it. It looked quite different , with a mixture of wheels, levers and buttons, but a lock keeper appeared and said to leave it to her and talked us through it all. She had recourse to different means of operating it too.