Friends and old boats.

Hi Friends.

Yesterday evening was spent rinsing out some washing which had been soaking throughout the day, I then fed Mog and Dog, before dishing up our dinner. By the time 9.30pm came, Keith was snoozing and I was having a hard job to keep my eyes open, so it was off to bed with the both of us.

When I woke up this morning it was 7am and Marmite was lying on my feet, which meant I could not move. I had to move her over so I could get out of bed.

A slightly warmer start to the day. We set off to finish going down the last 6 locks of the Atherstone flight, in the sunshine. The flight is an easy flight to do and is always kept nice, even though Tony Wright MBE the lock keeper is no longer doing the job of looking after the flight.

Moored at the bottom of the Atherstone flight was Andy's NB Khe Ry, with Lyra on guard, she was in fact keeping a close eye on Andy who had been helping us with the lock. We said cheerio to Andy who was off back to Brinklow, with a hope that we would see him again. It was then onward towards Alvecote, but as we passed the sanitary station we did a quick stop to empty the toilet cassette, just as well no one was following us at the time ;0).

At the bottom of the flight the River Anker converges with the canal and the views are of arable land, in this case rapseed and barley.
At the bottom of the Atherstone flight we passed Historic Working Boat Sickle. Sickle is a Middle Northwich, fleet number 84. She entered the fleet in 1936, today she looks in fine form.The one thing I really noticed was the amount of old Oak trees lining the canal, some of these Oaks must have been standing there for hundreds of years. We passed this beautiful Buttercup Meadow, which looked truly sublime in the sunshine.

We came under bridge 49 and Grendon Dry Dock is on the left hand side. With historic boats a plenty to be seen.

Vienna and Kestrel in dry dock at Grendon Dry Dock.

Just as we came under the bridge into Polesworth Keith and I spotted David off of NB First Fruits and with that Viv came out of the boat, so we pulled in and moored up on the centre line whilst we caught up with them on any news we both had. They are heading for Bristol this summer, whereas we are off to Droitwich. It was lovely to see them again. Low and behold just as we finished chatting to Viv and David, Ray and Jayne on NB Travelling in No Direction (CLICK ME) came past, so we had a quick natter with them as well. It has been a busy old day for seeing people we know.

We said goodbye to David and Viv, who had friends arrive, if we do not see them again this summer we will see them back at Market Harborough in October.

Having left Viv and David we met Elaine and Peter on NB Copperkins 2, who were on there way up the Ashby Canal.

We came past Pooley Hall looking splendid in the sunshine. The present Hall was built in 1509 by Sir Thomas Cockayne. It was built on the site of an earlier Hall and was one of the first examples in the country of a castellated brick-built manor house.

We arrived at Alvecote and have moored opposite the Samuel Barlow, with a lovely view of historic working boats. One day our boat will be historic, give her another 50 to 60 years hahaha. Having moored up, I made us some lunch and we are now chilling out a little. It is now 1.30pm and I have a few jobs to do, so I will see you later maybe.

Chat soon xx