Southam

We caught the bus from Napton to Southam today. When I told the driver where we were going, he looked at me blankly for a bit. I'd pronounced the "South" bit like Southwark, whereas he pronounced it like Southend. Once that was cleared up, we were allowed on board.

Southam has a Grade 1 listed church building, which was quite attractive from the outside but, to our disappointment, all locked up. Perhaps people in Southam don't worship on Wednesdays. There was also a fine old Manor house on the main street.

My camera has lost all the markings from the knob on top which selects the mode, and which can easily turn when I put the device into its case. I think these last two pictures were accidentally taken with a "Creative Content" setting, which accounts for the somewhat dramatic tones. Our purposes in this visit weren't at all dramatic. The first was to pick up a package fromAmazon at the Post Office, and the second to pick up a medication top-up for my best beloved, from the Pharmacy.

Electronic prescription is an excellent NHS service, and really useful for the boater. This Pharmacy looks like an old-fashioned sweet shop from the outside, but inside is vast and airy, with lots of helpful assistants. The internet doesn't seem to know whether their address is Nº1 or Nº4. It turns out they used to live in the above-pictured Manor House building, but moved a couple of doors down.

We also wanted to do some food shopping, but a visit to the Co-op doesn't really merit a picture. What does was a off-chance visit to the barber's.

They currently only do appointments by appointment, but thought they could just fit me in there and then. Lisa and Debbie are the stars of today's honourable mention.

I learned from Lisa a few intriguing things about the difference between the approaches of a barber and a hair stylist. And I benefited from an amazing £9.50 weekday rate for people of a certain seniority.

Southam isn't exactly the centre of the universe, and its excellent-looking library was also closed (this being Wednesday), but we had a successful visit, including a nice coffee in the very busy and happy Community Church café.