A Weekend in Warwickshire

We left on Saturday morning to go down to Warwickshire for the weekend, we had booked a hotel in Honiley, reminded me of the song 'Puff the Magic Dragon'. We planned to do a little shopping, there were still things required for the boat, Rachael had quite a substantial list, topped by a new television.

It was only an hour and half drive south to Warwick. We arrived about two o'clock after calling into the boat broker to pay some more money and to make sure they were on track to do some maintenance over the weekend. We wandered through the shopping streets and markets of Warwick while admiring the old buildings. A sign caught Rachael's eye, afternoon tea in a 16th century building that was once a hospital and now a quaint tea house. We spent a nice hour eating scones, jam and clotted cream while sipping tea in beautiful surrounds. It was getting late so we headed off to our accommodation for the weekend.

Honiley was only a short drive and the hotel was really the only building of note in the village, there were only a couple of houses, a pub and several farms. On the way I noticed a sign to Hatton Locks and recalled there were quite a considerable number of locks there. I knew Rachael, being the on-board lock operator, would love to see one of the places we will surely sail. It was very busy with cars and people, the canals are always popular with walkers, joggers, riders and dogs. There was a narrow boat coming up the lock flight and I asked the skipper how many locks he had come through, we were at number seventeen in the flight with four left to go! It was worth seeing Rachael's face, then she said she will have learnt to sail the boat by the time we get to Hatton.

Sunday we spent the day exploring several towns and continuing our hunt for items off Rachael's list. We explored Solihull and an old Roman city Leamington Spa.

On Monday we packed up the suitcases after a nice relaxing weekend and headed off for some final sightseeing, this time we made a bee-line back to Kenilworth Castle. The first part of this castle, The Keep was built in 1120 by Geoffrey de Clinton, it was the favoured residence of Lancastrian kings and Elizabeth 1 spent some time there. It was extended several times over hundreds of years into the several buildings that are there today, surrounded by a fourteen foot thick wall.

It was back to Stoke-on-Trent Monday afternoon and straight to the broker to ensure the maintenance was close to finished and ready for launch on Tuesday. No such luck! Hull blacking incomplete, no new anodes, in fact nothing was done on the weekend at all! At three o'clock there was a flurry of action as the head mechanic realised the boat was going tomorrow fixed or not. The items that needed doing were basic safety items and to be honest, I could do them myself but the previous owner was paying to have it done.

Tomorrow is Tuesday here, the day we take over the reins of Serafina.

Our hotel in Honiley

Kenilworth Castle