Too Hot to Lock.

 Tuesday 15th September 2020 outside Atherston.

The waning moon was even more slender this morning (just right of the centre of the tree top). M had hoped for another magnificent sunrise but there was more cloud and no horizon this morning.

We set off quite early with the intention of getting to Atherstone today, going up the eleven Atherstone locks. At Polesworth, former mine workings have been turned into a large nature reserve and at the top of one of the tree covered spoil heaps is a golden monolith. Much less of it is visible since we were here last, as the trees have all grown around it. The monolith cross-section is in the shape of a maple leaf but you need to be standing above it to see that! Close up, it is really remarkable.

Lovely agricultural countryside all around; most of the cereals have now been harvested.

After taking on water and dropping our rubbish at Bradley Green sanitary station, we arrived at the bottom of the Atherstone flight of locks.

Lock number ten, the second of eleven locks as you go up, is one of M's favourites as it has a lovely seat under the trees made from an old lock balance beam.

By now, it was mid-day and the temperature was into the high twenties. We both decided that it was "too hot to lock" any further and so we decided to moor up and have a quiet afternoon; after all, we're not in a hurry. If we had gone past this point, there is limited mooring before the top of the flight. We will tackle the rest of the flight tomorrow, when it is forecast to be cooler.

We moored up next to a very old milestone that shows 9 miles to Fradley and 18 miles to Coventry.

We spent a quiet afternoon. M, who had done a wash as we were travelling, put out the washing, which dried beautifully in the sun, even though there was no wind. However, she wouldn't take a picture of our mooring until the washing line had been put away!

Today: 6 miles, 2 locks and 3.1 hours.

Trip: 58 miles, 20 locks and 34.5 hours.