Over Old Familiar Ground

It seems that the rain on the boat show weekend and the several wet days while on the dry dock were only but a promise of things to come. We have been dodging rain ever since and in fact it has gone on for so long now we have had to don the wet weather gear or simply not go anywhere. Currently, rivers we plan to cruise on later this season are in flood, that's the River Avon and the River Severn.

I can assure you the sun glasses are for distance viewing and not for the sun!

To get to where we want to go it means tracking over what is now very familiar territory and stopping at some places that have become regular stopping places for us. Great Haywood is one such place and walking the grounds of the Shugborough Estate enjoying what it has to offer. In this case, the Chinese House built in 1747.

Making our way on to the Coventry Canal after another rain delay, this time at Fradley Junction we trekked in the rain to Fazeley Junction for an overnight stop. We still couldn't crack it for any sunshine but the rain held off  as we passed through Tamworth and a canalside market of seven or eight boats selling from the towpath.

A little tight passing other boats, you can see one in the background, but narrowboating is a game of inches.

I attempted to get some paint on to the gunwales after we arrived in Atherstone early but just as I was finishing the clean-up another downpour. I was fortunate that the paint had dried sufficiently that it wasn't affected so, one more coat to go on the port side with starboard still with grey spots.

Another wet day of cruising, even fueling and pumping out the holding tank in the rain, we turned on to the Ashby Canal, I had heard it was a lovely canal and worth a look. The pic shows the boat entering the Ashby under the bridge and along a narrow part of the canal that looks as though it was previously a stop lock, probably for tolling purposes.

The Ashby is a one way canal so I had chosen a few alternative stops going up and back down but it didn't get to that, the rain was so heavy and consistent that we stopped at our first mooring for several days before turning around and heading back to the Coventry.

The weather forecast was and still is looking bleak so we need to keep some lay days up our sleeve. We headed off coming to the end of the Coventry at Hawkesbury Junction and going on to the Oxford Canal. Just a couple of shots, firstly the old toll office (circa late 1700s) for collecting the tolls and issuing coal orders for boats using these canals.

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And, Serafina passing through the stop lock, making it impossible for a boat to move from one canal to the other quickly enough to avoid the toll. The canal levels are different here by about one foot.

No rain today as we kept going as long as we could, making our way to arrive around one hours cruising time from Rugby where we plan to spend several days.