With Carolyn away back in Devon it seems that Hamish is missing her . Not only is he sat at the front door waiting for her to come back all and every day but he has decided that he wants to go out for his morning walk at 05.00 . Now I don't mind getting up that early if we are going to have a long days cruising but to take Hamish out for a walk at that time is just not on. The picture above is down on the river Trent looking East towards Burton.
Looking back towards the lock at Alrewas and although it is a bit early this has to be the best part of the day especially with the Sun coming up over the horizon. Thank you Hamish for getting me up .
This boat passed as I was sat on the back of Inca doing a bit of fishing and having the odd glass of wine . My first thoughts were that the invisible man was steering the boat, then I thought maybe the steerer had fallen off . Then I thought sod it and had another glass of wine or three.
I absolutely love the village of Alrewas and it’s still top of the list for my final resting place. I would love to buy a house here and rent it out until we retire from boating. The village has everything and the people that live here are so friendly. But I just cannot persuade Carolyn to do it as she thinks it is too far away from Devon. But at 3 1/2 hours I don't think it is that bad and I even said she can have a lovely new car to do the journey in .
With Carolyn back from Devon we did a quick shop down in the village and did a rather large meat shop in Coates the Butchers which is the best Butchers by far that we have ever come across on the canal system. Ps If looks could kill ,all I said was just stand next to that car while I take a photo of you.
We pulled pins from Alrewas at 08.30 and made our way down to the lock which would drop us down onto the river Trent. Who’s that good looking person in the window.
Again I am in my element as I just love rivers . Yet again Carolyn is telling me to stay well clear of the barriers on the right which are there to stop boats going over the weir. Unfortunately the river section is only about a mile long before we get back onto the Trent and Mersey canal
There are a few Hotel boats on the system and here we passed Duke and Duchess .
Here we go again and Carolyn has spotted her first ripe Damsons of the year . She managed to pick enough for a couple of jars of jam .
As I mentioned before we are looking for a possible Winter mooring for Inca and are now having a look around Barton Turns Marina. We had a very friendly welcome from the staff and had a walk around the shops.
With restaurants ,shops ,a butchers and even a cinema this marina will be high on our list if we decide to use one for the Winter .
After leaving the marina we continued our cruise on towards Burton and came across these guys working hard taking this large tree down.
With a house and a boat being very close they took it down very slowly just doing a small piece at a time. I don't know what these guys get paid but they are worth every penny they get. On the way past we got covered in sawdust which wasn't a problem as it just brushed off but the guy on the boat behind us took to social media kicking off big time about sawdust on his lovely highly polished boat ….you always get one idiot !
We then picked up this mooring at Branston water park . The reason for it’s name is that this was the home of the famous Branston pickle which was first made in 1920 here in the village of Branston near Burton upon Trent, by Crosse & Blackwell .In 2004 the pickle business was sold by Nestle to Premier Foods and production was moved to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. I do love a bit of Branston pickle especially with a ploughman's lunch. .
Tomorrow we will continue our journey towards the river Trent and stop and have a look around Mercia marina on the way.
Happy Days
No comments:
Post a Comment