Brinklow Castle, Sloes and on to Rugby.

Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th October, 2105 in Rugby.

A rather grey morning with occasional watery sunshine. We set off across the fields in search of The Tump and second breakfast. You can see The Tump in the background.

The "ridge & furrow" pattern in the fields is very common hereabouts.

Brinklow is famous for "Brinklow Castle", a Motte and Bailey fortification built alongside the Roman Fosse Way by the Normans, although there was probably a Roman fort here earlier. It is very unusual in having both an inner and an outer bailey. It is surrounded by a deep ditch, which would originally have been a moat.

We climbed up the "Tump" as the Motte hill is called.

It stands about 40ft above the surrounding land and has a magnificent view of the countryside in every direction. You can see the double bailey in the foreground.

Second breakfast at Pumpkins Deli was as good as it was two years ago! This little coffee shop offers something unusual - gorgeous wedding cakes made entirely from different cheeses! They are works of art.

To M's frustration, there is an abundance of sloes this year yet they are invariably tantalisingly out of reach on the non-towpath side of the canal. But hooray!! - these were on the towpath side and within reach. 

We also gathered some wild damsons near The Tump on our way back to MM where we picked over and sorted these ready for the freezer. Visions of many bottles of sloe and damson gin to be enjoyed this winter! Goody!

The North Oxford Canal is a "contour" canal that meanders along following the contour of the land. In the 1830s, as competition increased from other canals and the threat of railways arrived, the canal was shortened by building embankments and cuttings. Originally it was 36 miles long between Hawksbury and Braunston, yet after the changes had been made, it was over 13 miles shorter! These lovely iron bridges typically mark the original course of the canal.

We moored up in Rugby for the day where we fell into conversation with little Noah and his grandmother, and they came aboard for a look around. Noah had been on a narrowboat "café" earlier in the summer and wanted to know if our narrowboat was a café too. He also fed the ducks.

We had a free afternoon and had planned to go to the cinema. Unfortunately, we set off in quite the wrong direction and walked a mile and a half up a rather horrid dual carriageway. It seems that Mr. Kipling is big in Rugby. Note the floral "cupcake" above the advertisement!

By the time we discovered our error and walked all the way back, we had missed the film that we wanted to see - but we did see four "Eddies" and found a Tesco with a Costa, so all was not in vain!

Tuesday morning dawned fine, but the weather rapidly deteriorated. Soon the rain arrived and we decided to have a quiet day as we are not in a hurry to get to Braunston.

The large cinema complex that we looked for yesterday turned out to be very close (in the other direction!) so, after the customary visit to Costa, we took ourselves off to see the new film "The Intern". It turned out to be the right place to be because when we were watching the film we could hear the rain hammering on the roof!

The film was excellent, funny and touching and very much appealled to Old Codgers like us.

As we left, M was upset to discover that last night there had been a live screening of the "Marriage of Figaro" from the Royal Opera House - and we could have made it. Bother!

Back at MM, the sun came out briefly, but the weather remained very unsettled so we had a quiet evening in.

Yesterday: 5 miles, 0 locks and 6.6 hours (2 days).

Trip: 427 miles, 317 locks and 321.7 hours.