We have had a good travelling day today. With no locks to worry about we have come about 12 miles to just outside Husband’s Bosworth. We passed the Welford Arm of the canal and North Kilworth and went through the Husband’s Bosworth tunnel, a baby at only 1166yds long!
We had the same mooring trouble after the tunnel as we usually do, ie there weren’t any suitable ones for the village. A Canaltime boat was moored there, rather strangely, with a rope extending across the towpath to a tree! Not sure what all that was about and not good practice. I did manage to get on to the bank but we couldn’t get the boat in far enough to moor properly as the edge was silted up. Then a boat came past in the opposite direction and we got grounded just off the bank with me still off the boat! I managed to get on in the end, this involved a rather energetic jump. Then I had to get on the roof to get the pole to push us off the bank, I’m like a gazelle! Unfortunately I managed to bring a considerable quantity of dog poo with me from the bank (dirty bastard dog owners!) and then had to spend a happy (not) half an hour clearing up and washing my trainers!
A little further on, however, we foung a lovely mooring and decided to call it a day. The sun was shining and we sat on the bank for a couple of hours. Then we did some twigging. A rather productive session it was too, with some quite large bits of wood, and all for free! Actually, yesterday I incurred a twigging injury. I managed to stab myself in the back of the hand with a big hawthorn thorn, ouch! It still hurts now. Today I wore gloves.
Ken is now fishing (again) and all I can say is, it’s a good job I’ve got a cottage pie in the oven!
Tomorrow we will definitely get to Foxton and down the flight. Maybe there will even be a mooring outside the pub!
Cheers B.
