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Sunset from our Monday
evening mooring at Welsh Road lock
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We were frozen in again on
Sunday but as we hadn’t planned on moving it didn’t bother us and we made sure
we had a long walk with Buddy. I looked
out an interesting circular walk that I knew Karen hadn’t been on before and
involved a couple of good lengths along unadopted roads. We had forgotten it was the weekend so were
surprised to find it busy – we saw four other people during the day.
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Hmmm. Which way should we go?
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I have the car on Mondays
as we play bridge in Stratford on Avon in the evening. This means I can get the weekly shopping out
of the way and anything else that requires a car. The waste facilities on the northern Grand
Union are few and far between and, unlike some other canals such as the Trent
& Mersey, does not have recycling facilities. So Mondays often also includes a trip to a
recycling centre.
This morning I had taken
Karen to work, filled the car up with diesel, done the shopping, got rid of the
recycling and was back on the boat by 7.15.
I am having the car on Tuesday too as we are playing bridge in the
evening with two of our friends and it makes sense to pick Karen up from work
on the way. Having the car for two days
means I can get more of the heavy chores out of the way.
We have a load of stuff,
like the sewing machine, that we are not using on the boat so we need to put them into our
storage facility in Redditch, which I will probably do tomorrow. I spent what seems like many times, on Monday
morning, walking the 1/3rd mile along the muddy towpath between the
car and the boat. Carrying shopping one
way and stuff for storage the other way.
During the morning a boat, the first we have seen on the move for three days,
came through carving a nice channel through the ice. The sun was also out so I thought that after
lunch there would be so little ice I would cruise down to Welsh Road lock where
the car is parked. Before that I drove the
car to Stockton, where Mark has his base for his fuel boat, to pick up some
coal. He seems to be the only person who
sells the coal that burns best on our stove.
We had a good chat and also
talked a bit about his round. He goes
along the Grand Union to Braunston, up the North Oxford, along the Coventry and
all the way up the Ashby. He then comes
back the same route and turns left at Braunston to head over to the Leicester
line all the way up to Foxton. On the
way he pops down the Welford and Market Harborough arms. When he gets back to Stockton he carries on
to Warwick, turning at the Saltisford arm and comes back to Stockton.
He varies the order he
does the various parts of his route and I had mistakenly thought he was heading
away from me when he sets off tomorrow which is why I drove over to his
boat. It transpired that he was setting out
for Warwick first thing and would therefore be passing me in the morning. Not only did it mean I wasted time going over
to see him it also meant I had unnecessary trips along the towpath lugging the
coal from the car to the boat. Oh well,
at least he will stop and fill us up with diesel in the morning.
Anyway, when I got back I cruised
the 1/3rd mile down to the lock (where the car is parked) and moored
up. This also meant that all the carrying
I did in the morning between the car and the boat had been a waste of time and
energy too.
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Looking west towards Welsh
Road lock from our Monday mooring
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This is looking the other
way
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