Edstone (turning veggie?)

During the week Karen had ordered some goods to be delivered to a store in a retail park in Stratford.  She received an email on Saturday saying they had arrived so on Sunday we cycled into Stratford to pick them up.  It was such a lovely day that there were plenty of walkers on the towpath around the villages like Wilncote and the outskirts of Stratford itself so Buddy was on his lead a lot of the time.

When we arrived at Wilmcote there was only one boat on the visitor moorings; all the others had gone on their ways since the locks were opened into Stratford on Friday.  We knew Helen had left on Pipistrelle as we passed her in the opposite direction when we set off on our bikes.  She wasn’t bothering going into Stratford this time and was heading back north up the canal.  She stopped and we had a brief chat but hopefully we will meet up with her again soon.

The only boat left at Wilmcote was our friends Brin and Zed’s boat Athwyr.  We have met them around the system a few times and always have a good chinwag about what we’ve been up to since the last time we met.  This year they have started running their boat as a trade boat selling falafel wraps and other vegetarian goodies.

Brin & Zed

Neither Karen nor I are vegetarians although three of our girls are.  Saying that we do try and make two vegetarian and one fish meal a week to keep our diet balanced. 

Anyway it was approaching midday and as I need to eat little and often I thought I’d try one of their wraps.  I have to say it was delicious and I loved all the trimmings Zed put in too.  Karen had a hot chocolate and we sat on a couple of their chairs on the towpath and had a long chat with them.  They are going down to Stratford to ply their trade and hope to spend a lot of time on the River Avon over summer.  It is the ideal place really as there is so much footfall in Stratford canal basin and along the river.

We stopped and gossiped to a few moored boaters we knew on the way, like Kevin and his friend on Wildwood, so it took far longer to cycle our 11 miles than we had planned.  

On the way back we stopped at a lock for some water and a couple started talking to us.  It transpired they were boaters too and had walked into Stratford for some shopping.  They have the unusually coloured pale blue boat that was at the service point in Wootton Wawen when I went for water there last week. They were both older than us but were great fun, if a little mad.  He was a Spike Milligan character and was called Gar (Gareth or Gary I presume), she was Karen but he called her Kar.  That was when we remembered the name of their boat, ‘Kar Gar’.  We chatted but I don’t think much of it made much sense but we had a good laugh - I think their boat should have been called Gar Gar!

When we got home we took the porthole windows out to give the boat a good airing.

Me being silly (apparently). Actually I was checking that I had taken the window out.

I cooked a chicken jalfrezi in the evening and the weather was so mild it was really good to be able to have the hatches and doors open until quite late into the night.