Lowsonford (cruising with a slow cooker)

Karen wanted to cook a lamb madras in the slow cooker on Monday so that really meant we needed to have a cruise to keep the batteries topped up as the slow cooker needed to be on all day.  We had prepared the spices on Sunday evening and marinaded the meat overnight so we loaded up the cooker and off we set.  We had always thought that slow cooker smells were the preserve of cruising in the winter but the smell of a curry wafting out all day on a summer’s day was just as tantalizing.

We went over Wootton Wawen viaduct with its quaint toll house.

Karen got a lovely shot of a Speckled Wood in the sunshine.

We went up six locks during the day and passed the ‘flower’ boat we had seen on our way down to Stratford.  He has a rather nice permanent moorings here at Lowsonford.

In the distance is one of the many split black and white bridges peculiar to the Stratford canal. 

We moored for what we thought was the day just below Lowsonford.

After the curry (which we marked as a “Must do again”) we decided to have an evening cruise, fill up with water and clean the roof.  The low evening sun made it difficult to see.

After filling up with water we ascended a lock; there are visitors’ moorings above this lock but they were all taken – there must have been about 20 boats so the Fleur de Lys which was canalside would have been busy.  We had to go up another lock, with the Antony Gormley sculpture, and then stopped as soon as we could as it was getting too dark to travel safely.

We have just under two miles to travel and nine locks to climb to get to Kingswood junction where we will probably head South down the Grand Union – a stretch of canal we haven’t been on before.  It will take us through Warwick and Leamington Spa before we join the Oxford canal down at Napton which we have been through many times in the past.