Onward down the Coventry canal

Thursday 5th July 2018

Wildlife of the day – Kingfisher ahead of us through Pooley country park.

Captain was up early and off! Crew stayed abed, claiming insect bites had prevented restfull sleep and she wasn’t wanted anyway. Bacon and egg sarnies were delivered to the steerer by 10am though ;^) On through the sunshine and the odd occurrence (for us) of being able to see both the sun and a half moon in the sky at the same time.

Saw this aptly named day boat moored at Streethay wharf.

Why is it that some live aboard boaters have lovely gardens of well kept flowers and vegetables growing on their boats yet appear to live in filthy conditions themselves. With curtains in tatters and so much dirt that you could boil a kettle on the smoke and tar residue as well as rrisking lung disease from the moulds growing.

We moored up for a couple of hours under several large trees just before Fazely and sat out most of the midday heat on the towpath. At 2:30 we set off again and passed through the two locks at Glascote before pulling over to visit the Coop store there. It appears that we can only spend our fortune saved on our Coop divi card at stores North of Stone as the Glascote one is like Thame, a separate Coop group that doesn’t honour the Blue card. Oh well, next time I travel North for work I’ll be getting in all the Christmas booze from a store that does take the card.

Approaching Alvecote we spotted this tyre floating in the canal and decided it must have been the inspiration for the new CaRT logo. After Alvecote we moved across to allow working boat Ling to pass in centre channel as he was travelling at speed heading North.

As we were passing Pooley Boat Services we were hailed by our friends Christine and Terry, from nb Grace, who were visiting their friends at the boat yard there. We stopped mid canal for quite and had a chat before continuing on.

We continued on and found the visitor moorings at Polesworth were not only empty of boats but also in the shade from the sun due to the high trees on the opposite bank – result.

We went to the Little India restaurant (above the Bull Inn) for our evening meal, excellent food with an unusual and excellent selection of beers for an Indian. Brenda even ended up giving the head waiter flower arranging lessons as the delivery they had received did not sit in the vase very well.

Graham