Friday 18th September 2020 close to Market Bosworth.
M was up for the sunrise with her first cup of tea. Both were lovely.
Our friend Judith is away on her camper van in Devon and waxed lyrical about the open air showers at the campsite. We too have an open air shower (of sorts)! R had experienced open air showers while on holiday in Bali and that gave him the idea to fit a "houdini hatch" over MM's shower. Its brilliant because it lets the light in and the steam out.
M walked the towpath again, it really is lovely agricultural farmland. Its flat for miles and our guide books warn of the winds that blow all the way from the Urals. It certainly lived up to its billing today and we both ended up with wind-burnt faces!
For miles, the hedgerows were festooned with Briony, M said that she had never seen so much.
A curiosity is this fluffy and colourful "Robin's Pin Cushion" caused by a Gall Wasp. It can affect wild and domestic roses, it is pretty but harmless.
The regular mileposts are a bit misleading as the last six miles of the canal are no longer navigable due to mining subsidence. There is a local association which has plans to reopen the canal to its original terminus at Moira but progress is very slow.
Electricity pylons follow the canal regularly, although they tend to go in straight lines and this canal certainly doesn't! They always remind M of her English "O" Level comprehension paper when she was asked to describe how pylons "stride across the land". It wasn't easy!
A couple of John Deere tractors with large spray attachments were driving round this field that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see.
What a gorgeous sight! There were nine of these delightful darlings all waving to us as we went by. Was this a Kindergarten outing, we wondered? Or perhaps professional "baby walkers"?
This tickled us. Little Maisie was in her custom built dog house complete with sliding roof. M remarked that it's usually R who is in the "dog house"!
This canal is very bendy, quite shallow (so we were often dragging the bottom) and absolutely crammed with boats either moored up or cruising. Twice we got caught up in convoys of four boats all crawling along one behind the other. As a result, it took us nearly six hours to go just 13 miles. Bit like the M25, on a bad day, said M.
Today: 13 miles, o Locks and 5.6 hours.
Trip: 81 miles, 29 locks and 45.5 hours.
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