Leamington Spa (Vet visit for Buddy)

Buddy has had conjunctivitis or something similar for a few days so we decided to get him to a vet as it hasn’t been clearing up.  We called a few vets and found one in Leamington Spa who would see him.  This meant we had a long cruising day for us so we set out early to travel nine miles and go through 20 locks.  Early mornings in the autumn are a lovely time to travel - no one else around ane leaves gently falling into the cut.

Karen picked up some apples from one of the locks.

The first ten locks were in a flight together at Stockton.  We got into a good rhythm and got through the first six very quickly.  We then met two boats coming up who were about the slowest lock operators we have ever met – it wasn’t as if they were new to boating either.  It doesn't matter how slow people are it's just that it would have taken them many hours to ascend the flight at their rate.  Anyway we soon moved past them and got going again. 

Going past the Blue Lias pub reminded us why the water was so grey – the blue lias colours the water in this area.

Karen was walking past this boat with Buddy and couldn’t believe that the dog bowls had been left on the towpath with food in.  She had to drag Buddy away of course!

We then went through the four Buscote locks which included a double width staircase of two.  The only other double width staircase we have been through was on the Droitwich canal.  It soon started raining and as Karen went in to make lunch it really poured – I carried on with a few locks on my own but Karen still took pictures through the windows as you can tell on some of the lock pictures at the bottom. Buddy couldn’t keep his eyes off this pheasant as we cruised past it.

We moored in the middle of Leamington and went to see the vet who gave Buddy a good check over and confirmed the conjunctivitis.  The skies opened again just as we were about to leave so sheltered in the vets for a while.  Karen had put a mushroom cobbler in the slow cooker in the morning and we were really ready for it when we got back home.

Here’s the locks we went through today.