Today was reasonably mild and dry - at times very weak sunshine lurked just behind thin cloud.
However, our cruise could be described as 'plain vanilla' cruising but those who enjoy vanilla flavouring especially in good quality ice cream will realise that although there are few distinctive details to report, we had a rather pleasant day.
After about an hour we arrived at Sutton Wharf where we called to sue the disposal facilities. Both there and earlier along the towpath we saw a number of walkers, seemingly attracted by footpath routes from the car park to the Bosworth Battlefield Visitor Centre.
As we passed under Bridge 29 near Dadlington we spotted this bat box on the side of the abutment. As well as guessing what it is we worked out its purpose (a) because it had a symbol of a bat on it - or more like a vampire - and (b) it looked very similar to those we found on the internet later on.
We stopped at the new moorings just before Stoke Golding Wharf so that Christine could make another visit to the nearby farm shop. The previous pork pie was deemed worthy of having a second! It was then sufficiently close to lunch time that it was not worth untying and hoping to find as good a mooring just a little further.
Soon after resuming our journey we saw this group of ponies in a field alongside the canal - including some incredibly miniature ones. Some looked as it they were trying to be models for Thelwell!
As always, the underneath of concrete bypass bridges (this one just to the north side of the Triumph factory we featured a few days ago) always attracts graffiti artists. In many cases the decoration amounts to little more than the tag of some local gang but this phrase, "Life Aint a Checklist!Just Live iT!" seemed to us to capture an interesting idea and be worthy of being allowed to stay there.
At Nutt's Bridge, Hinckley, where we stopped on the way up we again moored up. We only had a few items on lour shopping list, including a paper, but we had enough time to walk the mile into town if need be. On our last visit here in 2013 Mike then caught a bus back, which would be helpful if needed. However, the small (but perfectly formed) Londis shop that Mike went to on Friday was able to supply what we needed, even if we did have a debate about whether to take part-baked baguettes or some of the cob rolls that they use for their morning specials. Cobs won.
As a result we were back at the boat with still time for another hour's cruising. We continued to meet a ,lot more traffic than usual with most seeming to be heading for the festival - there must have been many times the normal average number of 'put-puts' as we might disdainfully call them (boats with engines that follow the same construction as early narrowboat engines, firing at a much lower speed and hence the eponymous sound)
When we passed the bank maintenance work we noted last week we initially thought that not much had been done over the weekend. However, a later comparison of today's photo with the earlier one showed that the bank has now been backfilled with dredging silt for most of this length.
We stopped quickly when we realised that our planned stretch would have been under the two lines of electricity pylons. What appeared to be a conveniently cleared piece of bank did take some coming alongside as the water level away from the mid channel is not great, but that had been the case much of the day. However, stubbornness won out over common sense and we finally positioned ourselves to our satisfaction - a clump of reeds protected our bow from on coming boats!
10.3 Miles - 0 Locks
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