Hillmorton.

I must have a good signal because I am back again.

Having had lunch Keith and I took a walk down the locks and met up with Keith the lock keeper who was on at Braunston over the weekend. This time he was in charge of a hammer and chisel, repairing a lock gate.

The Oxford Canal was built around Hillmorton in the 1770's, the railway came in the 1830's.

One of the biggest sights at Hillmorton are the 'Hillmorton Radio Masts", Rugby VLF transmitter. Keith had an uncle who worked there, during the 2nd World War and after.

We walked down to the boat yard where Russell Newbury engines will have their new office. The Badsey Cafe was sadly closed and will be until the 7th December, so we could not enjoy a cuppa there, so we walked to the John the Baptist Church to have a look around.

The church dates back to the 13th century and has under gone a lot of alterations over the centuries, with bits added and changed. The church has a long history. Like with most small villages, it is being swallowed up by Rugby, which is a real shame as it will lose its identity if it is not careful. The one sad thing I found about the churches grave yard is there isn't one now. All the headstones have been taken up and moved to the fence line of the church yard. It is such a shame because many of them are hidden in the undergrowth, so cannot be read. I did however find a couple of interesting headstones.

John Twigger may have been part of a boating family, so I am going to look into his name further.

Private Joseph W. Barnett 6399 24th (The Queen's) Batn london Regt, was killed in action in France and Flanders on the 11th September 1916, after previous service with the 3rd Batn Leicester Regt (Service no 25498). He is buried in the Flatiron Copse Cemetery, Mametz. Private Barnett was a resident of Leicester. Grave Ref. VIII. I. 3. I have yet to find out anything about his sister Rose.

I am also looking into the life of Private R. C Roberts. Whose headstone stands alone under a Yew tree, which is rather sad.

After a enjoyable stroll down the towpath to see whether there was any moorings spare, we decided to stay put for the night. It seems that most of the mooring space has been taken up by winter moorings, which is not great when your a continuous cruiser and you need to moor up. We are now back on the boat and it is getting dark at 16.44pm arghhhhhh. Paddy has still not got his food clock sorted out, so he has been worry me me the past 45 minutes because he has been expecting his dinner. he does not get fed until 5pm. He will then have his dinner and start worrying Keith to go out for his evening walk. Marmite on the other hand is very laid back about the whole thing.

So a nice day one way or another, and now I am going to settle in for the evening with a DVD, after I wash up the dinner things, do a load of washing whilst the generator is on, lay out the bed for tonight, so it can air, make up the back cabin stove and then put all the dinner things away, it will then be time finally to settle down for a film of some description, I am sure it will be better than the film we watch on film4 last night. "No Country For Old Men" had seemed like a great film, if you believed the hype, so we watched it last night and I thought it was utter rubbish. I am so glad I never paid to go and see it in the cinema. Now I bet there are those who thought it was fantastic, so it is just my opinion that it is rubbish.

Chat soon xx