Saturday 5th September
Our visitors, Carol & Ted, arrived at The Gate Inn in time for Elevenses and we chatted (and chatted) reminiscing about our 1988 canal holiday together, the route of which we have re-discovered over the past few weeks. Soon it was lunchtime and we enjoyed another meal in the pub, I tried their Beef Rendang which I really enjoyed, whilst the others played safe with plaice and chips, which was equally good. All too soon we had to say goodbye but not before more tea and snacks had been forced upon them.
We don’t usually start our day’s journey at 5:30 pm but it was just a short hop down to Pooley Country Park to catch up with Ray & Penny (who painted the wrens on our back doors) naturally more tea and cake was consumed!
On the way we passed Narrowcraft at Alvecote where this tug was up on the hard-standing.
Sunday 6th September
This morning Ray and Penny had to take their boat down to Fradley for blacking, but not before we had been shown where to find damsons, apples, blackberries and bay leaves around the park.
We waved them off.. and they promptly got stuck on a mud bank coming off of their mooring! So a kind of push-me pull-you tow was in order, then we moored back up to continue our foraging before leaving.
An hour and a half later, at 12 noon we were at the bottom of the eleven Atherstone Locks and did well with all but two of them in our favour.
Pausing only to pick some yummy ripe plums from the trees at lock 8 we arrived at the Top Lock at 2 pm just in time for the volunteer lockies to assist with the last lock (Perhaps they were taking a long lunch break?)
Penny had told us not to miss the Clock Tower Tea Rooms and Cookery School at Hartshill Yard so we moored up in a sunny spot nearby and visited it, sadly for us they had completely sold out of cake (!!!) so it was just a pot of proper leaf tea and a fruit juice. Penny has some of her art work on sale here so we purchased a couple of greeting cards.
We thought we could indulge ourselves tomorrow for breakfast instead only to find that they don’t open on Mondays! Oh well, back to the boat to look forward to Joy’s cauliflower cheese & a fruit crumble instead.