Canal Date 15th July 2011
Travels 38 Miles 35Lock
Current Location Trent Lock - Long Eaton Tuesday 12July
This summer cruising is just so nice. If you think that you can imagine how nice it is and then multiply that by a factor of 10 then maybe, just maybe, you are getting somewhere near. It is probably even better than having to go to work every day!
Time for a move. We set off this morning. We were not intending to travel far, just as far as the next services at Kilby Bridge. It is about 4 miles and 7 locks away. When we arrived at out destination, we looked at the BW facility block. Unfortunately for us, the only part that we really wanted was the toilet pump out, and this is locked up and out of order signs just about everywhere. Well it is lunch time. What a surprise, we are outside a pub. We were very soon inside the said pub enjoying the odd pint or two and the bargain lunchtime specials. It was exceptional value. It is a curry special night to night so we may just creep back in again. Well it does seem a shame to abandon these canal-side pubs to the locals.
Wednesday 10/07/2011 Kilby Bridge to Syston
We were on our way just as soon as we could, a long day today. The canal is full of locks. They are averaging about 2 per mile and all against us as usual. I was determined to go through Leicester and find moorings back in the countryside for tonight. We made reasonable progress through the day. I had to stop twice and lift the weed hatch. First time was an old garment of some sort. It had cotton and elastic. A bit of a bugger to get off the prop. The second was all my fault. I used reverse in a lock and got my own, nice new rope caught on the prop. Now that was a real bugger to remove. It’s a good bit of rope, It was even resistant to a knife. As we made our way north into Leicester, it was not as bad as I had imagined. The town centre was though. And the northern part of Leicester was quite run down, with graffiti everywhere. Once we had left Leicester and its outskirts we travelled through a very nice water park. This looked very nice indeed but there was an obvious lack of moorings here. We continued on to a spot marked on the guide as moorings, and what do you know? It has a pub!
It was a curry special night – curry & a drink for £5.95 – It had to be worth a go. It was quite good. Not as good as the previous night. The food and service was fine but the plates were cold and the meal very soon cooled down. It was a quiet night on board. Not always the case when on a pub mooring.
Thursday 14/07/2011 Syston to Trent Lock
After yesterdays marathon run through Leicester, we were having a bit of a lie in this morning. All went to plan until 9.00 when we both noticed the unmistakable felling of some one walking across the boat. Always a bit worrying. After a quick scramble to put on some clothes, I opened the hatch to have a look. There was some one on my boat! It was the boys in blue! The dreaded BW bank maintenance team were moving my boat complete with us in it! They were most apologetic and said that they had waited for us to get up, but could not wait any longer. They wanted to fill one of their boats with a lorry load of gravel and we were right in the only spot they could get the lorry. The River Soar is very nice once past Leicester. It has a bit of the Avon about it. We managed to move much faster on the deeper and wider river than on the canal so we travelled further than expected. In fact we travelled twice as far as we had anticipated. On route we teamed up with another couple to use the locks, she was fine but he was a miserable old git. They were travelling faster than us and were always at the lock first. On one occasion, Pam left the boat to take Millie for a short walk. When I pulled in to the bank to collect them I was grounded good and proper. It took us an age to get free, and bless them, Mr. Misery and wife were still waiting for us. On route to the next lock we stopped for fuel. When we arrived at the following lock, Mr. Misery had gone. We arrived at Trent Lock at 6.00.
I now have raging tooth ache! After a short nap we went to the Trent Lock Pub. It was very busy, we had to eat in the bar. I think the food was fine but I was not. The tooth ache was making any form of chewing almost impossible.
No comments:
Post a Comment