Yes, we do have friends!

It was still too windy to cruise safely on Saturday so we walked a couple of miles into Atherstone for our Saturday paper.   I knew it was Saturday as Karen made bacon sandwiches before we left.

Atherstone is typical of nearly all the market towns we visit – at least three hardware stores.  We first noticed this phenomenon at Tring.

We stayed in for the afternoon and did odd jobs like clearing the rubbish out of the canal that had blown against boat including a large tree branch which is now on top of the boat ready for cutting up.

In the evening we walked two and a half miles (along the tow path in the dark) to Polesworth to meet our friends Mike and Aileen from nb Quaintrelle who are heading south at the moment.  When we researched the pubs that we could meet in all three in Polesworth have between one and three Sports TV screens so we knew the type of pub we were in for.  Anyway, Aileen texted me as we were walking there.  She said they had arrived at the pub and it was small and busy and had FOUR TV screens. We had a great evening with Mike and Aileen catching up with each other’s travels and plans.  The pub was OK as it served Doombar, one of my favourite beers. 

The wind died down during the night so we got up early on Sunday morning to head to Fazeley which is just north of Tamworth and where the Coventry canal meets the Birmingham and Fazeley canal.  It was a glorious morning and Karen took a few shots as we headed to Tamworth.  This is one of the old mile markers that shows the distances to each end of the Coventry canal.  Unfortunately they are made of sandstone so have worn away with time and cannot be read clearly.

At some points the canal was fairly narrow.

Apparently Edwin Starr used to live here before he moved to Nottingham and died.

And this is the closest shot Karen could get of the ruined abbey at Alvecote.

At one point Buddy fell in the canal as he got over excited playing with another dog and lost his footing.  We went through two locks at Glascote.  This is the top lock.

And this is me peering out of the bottom lock.

The canal after the bottom lock was full of rubbish and we had to stop as we got stuff caught up in the propeller.  It wasn’t much fun cutting off the black plastic bags, carrier bags and a bit of carpet as the water was so cold.  Fortunately we  were near where we wanted to moor – Tame aqueduct.  This is the river Tame:

And this is us coming over the aqueduct.

We are now moored up, drinking mulled wine with a chicken roasting in the oven – bliss!