Friday 12th and Sunday 14th July 2019 in Leicester.
On Friday morning, M caught the train back to Reigate to help out with babysitting. R stayed in Leicester and moved MM back to the moorings next to Castle Gardens.
He was amused to see a stream of graduates over the two days, presumably from nearby de Montfort University, celebrating on the footbridge overlooking the moorings in their caps and gowns.
Our neighbour on nb "African Queen" spends much of his time making sculptures out of aluminium cans. The roof of their boat was covered in them . He very kindly gave R two examples and demonstrated how he made them.
The mooring was very popular and on Saturday, MM had two boats breasted up alongside but on Sunday morning they all moved on including the African Queen.
M was due back at midday but her journey was delayed by engineering works and she had to do the last leg of the trip on a coach replacement service, which made her a bit late. She said she actually enjoyed the ride, as it afforded opportunities to see new places, such as the picture postcard Northamptonshire village of Rockingham and its famous castle.
R met M at the station and on the way back to MM, we passed a statue to Thomas Cook. His first ever excursion was to take around 500 temperance campaigners the 11 miles from Leicester to Loughborough by train on 5th July 1841 at a cost of one shilling per person. The first of many.
Once M had settled back into MM, we let go and resumed our northerly progress. Much as we have enjoyed Leicester, it was good to be on the move again. As we neared the old Wolsey factory chimney, we picked up something on the propellor, so we pulled into the side. M held MM on the middle rope while R went down the weed hatch and removed a small pile of carpet offcuts. (that's R's back, bent over the weed hatch!).
This is the approach to the lock next to the National Space Centre where, three years ago, something knocked our rudder out of its bearing, which meant that we had to get MM pulled out of the water to reset it. An expensive exercise. This time, we went through the lock without any problem.
As soon as we were through the lock, we were back in rural countryside. Incredible to think that we were less than three miles from the centre of Leicester.
At Birstall, we moored up on the same moorings that we used three years ago. A very quiet mooring.
M slept with the curtains open so we could lie in bed and look at the moon clearly reflected in the water. Tomorrow will be a full moon.
Three days: 5 miles, 5 locks and 6.6 hours.
Trip: 160 miles, 82 locks and 99.8 hours.
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