Yesterday started off wet so we stayed at Loughborough. It had improved by late morning and we walked back in to town, went to the shops and the pub. Just the usual really.
Today started off dry so we decided to move on. We had only got a few hundred yards down the river when it started raining ……………. and it has been raining more or less ever since!
I haven’t had a good day actually. First I cracked my head on the hatch coming in the back of the boat. A little while later, coming in again with wet feet, I slipped down the back steps, hitting my elbow on the way down. After that, while doing Sileby Lock, I let the windlass slip out of my hand and it spun round on the spindle hitting me in the arm! I thought this was the end of my clumsiness but I’m afraid not. Next I managed to lacerate my thumb on a baked bean tin! Aaaargh!
Anyway, enough of that, back to today’s trip. It was a rather soggy affair comprising of 5 miles of travelling, 3 locks and a stop at Barrow sanitary station for water and loo emptying.
We were joined at Mountsorrel Lock by a day boat from Barrow with a crew of Australians. They were going to Syston for lunch at The Hope and Anchor. They hadn’t picked a very good day for it bless them. We did Sileby Lock with them and as there was no one moored above the lock we decided to stop.
Waterproofs still on as it was still raining, we walked into the village for a paper. On the way in we passed The Horse and Trumpet, which I wrote this rather scathing report about in 2009 –
‘This is where we made the mistake of going into town to buy a paper and go to the pub (as we do)! Unfortunately the nice pub we had been to on a previous visit to Sileby was closed. In fact the only pub we could find open was the ‘Whore and Strumpet’………..Oops, I mean the ‘Horse and Trumpet’! This is indeed a pub which needs attention. It was warm enough if you sat by the heater and the beer was ok but the fact that the barmaid/landlady and her daughter (we surmised) were intently watching ‘Jeremy Kyle’ on tv in the back bar was somewhat off putting. The whole place was badly in need of a good clean. There were fag ends in the sink in the ladies and the top was missing off the cistern. Oh and they hadn’t got any crisps, none at all! We daren’t ask if they did food!’
We noticed today that it had been taken over by the Steamin’ Billy Brewery and had been done up. It would have been churlish not to check out the improvements.
We were impressed, although it wouldn’t have been hard for it to be better than the last time we were there as it had been a complete dump, as you can see! We had a pint of their Steamin’ Billy Bitter which was very nice. Ken also tried a half of rather dubious strong cider but decided it was too sweet.
This evening as the rain had finally stopped Ken was going to do some fishing but the river is so clear so he decided not to bother.
Tomorrow’s plans are not decided yet.
