Ashby end

We pulled pins at bridge 5 on Thursday morning at 07.45 and made our way towards Stoke Golding where we hoped to pick up a mooring for the night.

                                                   The triumph factory at Hinckley.

At bridge 23 there is a farm shop that is well worth visiting. I bought a lovely large pork chop for a couple of quid that went down a treat with a few glasses of red wine. We will stop again on the trip back down the Ashby.

We found a 48 hour mooring at Stoke Golding with good internet and tv this will do us tonight.

 We decided to walk into the village to pick up a newspaper but found the village store had closed down. Not to worry though there was a post office next door. The post office was closed for lunch, so with a pub next door and with10 minutes to spare there was only one thing to do. ( £7 for 2 pints of lager !!!. )When the post office opened we discovered they didn't sell newspapers. in fact they didn't sell much. So I now need to amend the canal guide book to no provisions and expensive lager in Stoke Golding.

We pulled pins at 08.10 on Friday morning and headed towards Snarestone which is the end of the Ashby canal.

Repairs being made to the offside bank. Stakes are driven into the canal bed then a membrane is fixed to the stakes, finally mud from the canal bottom is filled in behind the membrane. In a very short time plants start to grow and a new canal bank is formed.

Carolyn is now getting a lot more confident on the tiller. She just needs to practice steering in and out of a few more locks.

                                                  And steer through some tunnels. (snarestone tunnel)

Our mooring at the end of the Ashby canal. The restoration is continuing but for the time being this is as far as you can get.

                            There is a small shop which raises money for the restoration. And as Carolyn can't pass a shop without going in she had to check it out.

We had a good night and pulled pins on Saturday at 09.00 as we had to find a mooring with good road access as we where due to meet our friends Tony and Maureen.

We found a mooring at Shackerstone and after getting lost on route our visitors finally found us. It was great to see them both and we will catch up again when we come down to Devon in November.

We did intend on staying at Shackerstone but with poor internet and hundreds of wasps (one of them stung my ankle) we decided to move.

How organised is this....It's Not Inca

 

We eventually found a very isolated mooring out in the country. We have good tv and internet and good dog walking. The weather forecast for the next couple of days is heavy rain and high winds. The rain is not a problem but the wind is as narrowboats do not handle very well in such conditions.  This will do us for a couple of days.

 

Happy Days