Wednesday 27th June
Today we travelled 8 miles and the stop lock from Hawkesbury Junction to Hartshill and moored outside The Anchor. We were going to get to Atherstone but it was really hot and humid and the going seemed to be really slow. It took 3.5 hours for some reason just to get to Hartshill and after an aborted attempt to get in to a space which was too short we winkled in on the end near the bridge. Another couple, going the opposite way, were pleased we were too long for the first space because they wanted to get in it! I was not having a very good day so I was pleased we managed to get in anywhere.
We took George to the Anchor and he had a nice time getting a couple of pats and having a lay in the sun. While we were there we met the couple who moored in the small space we couldn’t fit in and they told us the landlord of the pub was going to take them in to Nuneaton so they could go shopping. They asked us if there was anything we wanted, which was very kind of them, so we got them to get us some milk.
Talking of shopping, as we have not come upon a shop lately we were running short of comestibles so we decided to go to The Anchor for dinner later. Unfortunately I was unable to do mine justice (very unusual for me) but I’m sure it was very nice. George enjoyed what I brought home for him anyway. I had to go back later and pay for the wine because the landlord had forgotten to charge us for it, honest or what?
Thursday 28th June
I had to make a monumental effort to pull myself together today because we had 7 miles and the 11 locks at Atherstone to do to get to Polesworth. We had about an hour’s travelling to get to the top of the locks and we started them at about 9-30 am. A man who was coming up told us there were loads of boats going down, there was a motor and butty among the boats going down, so they obviously had to pull the butty in separately, which was taking ages and at the bottom lock only one paddle was working so it was taking a long time to fill! Great, I thought!
We were about half way down the flight when all Hell broke loose with the weather. It had been raining for a while but suddenly there was a HUGE storm with thunder, lightening and hail stones the size of large peas. The sky was as black as night and the wind really got up. We were just filling a lock so we went in the boat, Ken got changed (I had my waterproofs on) and waited for the storm to pass over which took about 20 minutes.
With the worst over we continued with the rest of the locks, the motor boat and butty had moored up so we didn’t have to follow them any more and when we got to the bottom lock there was a boat just coming out of it so we didn’t have to fill it, hurrah!
We stopped the sanitary station at the bottom of the flight and the weather worsened again. Fortunately we had just finished filling with water etc so we had a sandwich and waited for it to let up. After about 10 minutes we restarted our journey to Polesworth. It was raining a bit most of the way here but just as we started mooring up the heavens opened once more and we got drenched again! The path disappeared under 6 in of water as did my feet, fortunately I was wearing crocs and no socks (I’m a poet and I didn’t know it!) but my feet were filthy!
After we had finished mooring up the weather finally looked like clearing up so Ken got changed again and I ditched the waterproofs (and washed my feet) and we walked in to the village to get some much needed shopping. There is a Spar shop and a Premier Stores, chemist, greengrocers, butchers and various other shops here, it is a very useful place to stop. After we had replenished our diminishing food stocks we happened upon The Red Lion and were treated to free cheese and biscuits (good job my appetite was better today) from the landlord.
Tomorrow we are heading for Wittington, we would have been heading for Hopwas but for some reason mooring is suspended there Fri – Sun due to the Olympic Torch relay, not sure why really.
