Thursday 2 April 2015

Moored up for the bank holiday at Hartshill


We have arrived at The Anchor Inn at Hartshill near Atherstone. We will remain here for the Bank Holiday weekend and let the weekend warriors have the canals to themselves. We have noticed a dramatic increase in boat traffic this week; we have had to queue for locks again!

We passed Alvecote Marina where we lived for a while when we first bought the boat, we had travelled that length of canal loads of times but it has been so long now that I only remembered bits of it. It is a nice rural canal once you have cleared Tamworth.

The weather over the last week of so has not been very kind to us; we have had 48 hours of gales with rain and hailstorms popping up all over the place. It also has been very cold for the time of year, we are still lighting the fire most days. This time of year I would expect to light the fire but only of an evening. The weather has been interesting; the boat bumping up against the bank and the noise of the wind in the trees and the driving rain. It was almost like a summer holiday in Wales! The poor weather has made the towpaths very muddy and unpleasant. I doubt it will be a BBQ weekend somehow. The bad news is that we are moored right outside a rather inviting looking warm and cosy pub and I expect that means that we shall have to try it out (Again). 

So far this year we have done 110 miles and 83 locks and it's only the start of April. We have completed the last of the locks for a while now and we are lock free all the way from here to the end of the Ashby Canal and back again; that will please Mrs Cook no end. I shall have to think of other ways to keep her fit!

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