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| Classic telegraph pole with insulated pots |
I needed the car on Monday
so dropped Karen at Nuneaton station at six in the morning. The first task of the day was do a big
supermarket shop (one of the reasons for needing the car). I also wanted to get rid of recycling as the
rubbish points on the Coventry canal take general rubbish only. Unlike the Trent & Mersey, where we have
been for the last few weeks, who are trialling taking dry recyclables at their
rubbish points. It transpired that Nuneaton
council have stopped public recycling as a cost saving measure – it all has to
be done through householder bins so I had a car full of recycling.
Having got the shopping I
then endeavoured to find a canal bridge at Bedworth suitable for mooring the
boat and parking the car. It took forever;
each place was either suitable for parking or mooring but not both. Poor old Buddy didn’t know what was happening
- out of the car – onto the towpath – back to the car again.
In the end we found a spot
on Gipsy Lane so we left the car on the grass verge and walked the six miles
back to Apple Pie Lane Bridge where we were moored in Hartshill. Apple Pie Lane Bridge is one of our favourite
bridge names.
Walking back through
Bedworth and Nuneaton wasn’t particularly pleasant as the locals don’t seem
keen on clearing up after their dogs – the wort place we have seen this problem. Anyway there was some pleasant countryside at
either end of the walk and we passed one of the old style telegraph poles with
ceramic insulators. The telegraph wires
used to be bare and hence needed insulating at points of attachment. Industrial historians often refer to these
old poles as street art as they were individually designed rather than mass
produced depending on the number of wires they were carrying etc. If you’re really interested have a look at: the Quadhurst site.
I found four more
milestones (two were missing in this section).
I have included the photograph for my daughter in law Amanda as she is
particularly interested in these artefacts.
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| 13/14, 14/13, 15/12 & 18/9 - getting ever closer to Coventry |
I also saw two more Small
Tortoiseshells on our way back. Time was
tight as we now had to move the boat to Bedworth in time to leave at five to
get Karen from work. We were going to
Stratford upon Avon for the evening. We
have managed to find a bridge club where we can continue the lessons we were
having at Tunbridge Wells – so our Mondays are going to be busy from now on.
On the way to Bedworth we
went through the area north of Nuneaton that has been mined for ores for
centuries. There are many of these spoil
heaps dotting the side of the canal making the landscape interesting. The local history society has put together a good site on the quarrying history of the area here: Nuneaton local history site.
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| Mount Judd - a spoil heap from Judkins Quarry |
We moored up in time to
grab a quick bite to eat and then set off to pick Karen up from work and then
onto Stratford.
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| Our mooring for Monday night by Gipsy Lane, Bedworth |
As we arrived in Stratford
with some time to spare I got rid of the recycling. Stratford is one of those towns that have
recycling bins next to each litter bin so I visited five of them to distribute
things evenly rather than filling up one bin.
The other good thing about Stratford is that parking in the centre is free between six
in the evening and eight in the morning.
This means that when we moor up in the basin, opposite the RSC theatre in the centre, then Karen can park in the
High Street practically next to the boat.
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| Our new bridge club - very friendly and welcoming people |
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