Whittington, Guarded by Gnomes!

Tuesday 15th October, 2013 at Whittington.
We awoke to the promise of a dry day. Hooray!
As we set off, we saw that the boat moored up just in front of us was another Kingsground boat; nb "Tinker Fox" was Kingsground's 35th boat, launched on 30th April 2001.

We have been keeping a record of each Kingsground boat that we see on our travels. So far we have spotted 52 out of 112. Just another 60 to go!
It was a very pleasant day's cruising and the sun even broke through intermittently.
The two locks at Glascote, just before Tamworth are very attractive and not difficult, but a bit like a child's money-box: Slow to fill but quick to empty! M nicknamed them the "Piggy Bank Locks".
The weather stayed dry and pleasant, so we decided to keep going and made good progress, passing the junction at Fazeley where the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal branches off towards Birmingham.

The countryside beyond Tamworth is surprisingly rural and it was fascinating to see, in reverse, all the sights we had seen on the way down last month, including the gold monolith at Alvecote glimpsed through the trees.

We remembered that there were nice moorings at Whittington, where there is also a stone marker to show the old join between the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal and the Coventry Canal.

M had a "cunning plan" to moor MM so that her front half was on the Birmingham & Fazeley and the back half was on the Coventry. Unfortunately, like all of Baldrick's "cunning plans", this one came to naught as, much to M's annoyance, someone was already moored right across the join!
So, we ended up mooring just a few feet away, on the Coventry.

Afterwards, we walked into Whittington village for a "few bits". The bridge from the canal was guarded in a most unusual way, although "Elf & S*f*ty" would have approved as there was an appropriate warning sign on the gate...

Still, we gave them a wide berth, just in case.

We also passed an intruiging tree. It looked like a Spindle Tree, but its fruit was bright blue instead of orange. Any ideas anyone? We couldn't find it in the books.

Today: 11 miles, 2 locks and 5.2 hours.
Trip: 559 miles, 348 locks and 443.1 hours.