Another weekend on Caxton
The hot summer continues.
We drove to Braunston on yet another sunny Thursday evening with the intention of eating out before boarding Caxton. Both the Admiral Nelson and the Boathouse were packed so we settled for cod and chips from the Braunston Fryer and they were delicious!
After sitting out in the cratch we had a relatively early night as I had to get up at 4.30 on friday to fly to Edinburgh.
I awoke before the alarm went off, showered and got dressed before driving to Rugby where I caught a train to Birmingham Airport. Sue meanwhile was carrying out work on Caxton – well she said she was!
Hard at work!!!
It was almost 6pm when I returned to Caxton where I quickly got changed, had dinner and then went for a walk with Sue up and around the village.
A plaque marks Braunston’s canal heritage.
The bottom lock absolutely full of water.
On our return we invited Mike and Kim, who moor their boat Claire Louise next to us, for a few drinks on the bow deck of Caxton. We had a good old chinwag for a few hours until we parted company around midnight.
Despite the late night, we were up and about reasonably early on Saturday morning. I paid a visit to Midland Chandlers where I bought a new water filler cap which I fitted upon my return.
Nice and shiny!
At midday we walked up to the village where we met Joe and Lesley from nb Yarwood at the Old Plough for lunch. A couple of pints of Doom Bar and a lime and soda for Sue washed down a variety of delicious meals. We chatted for more than a couple of hours in the sunshine before we went our separate ways.
After we had done a bit of shopping, Sue and I returned to Caxton where we sat in the cratch. Sue baked a couple of cakes for our visit to Bosworth marina on Sunday and then we waved goodbye to Mike & Kim as they took nb Claire Louise out of the marina and started their journey towards Oxford.
Mike operating the tiller.
Kim operating the bow thruster!
Our main reason for not taking Caxton out this weekend was we wanted to visit Bosworth marina to view the progress and to meet some of the other boat owners who will be mooring there. It didn’t take us too long to get ready and leave Caxton for a few days. We drove straight to the marina, arriving just after ten o’clock. Helen, the owner of the marina was chatting to a couple of people who were moving from Springwood Haven which lies between Nuneaton and Atherstone on the Coventry canal. We were soon joined by Martin and Caroline from Somerset who are having a new boat built by Bluewater Boatsand will be mooring just two berths away from us. Their build slot is booked and we are hoping to follow the construction of nb Sonia Louise, a semi-trad reverse layout boat of around 65′. Caroline found our blog after first following Joe & Lesley and then Paul & Elaine who were of course our predecessors as custodions of Caxton. We all had a wander around the marina, found our new berths and then made our way to the new facilities building where we bumped into Chris Hubbard who is the marina manager and a friend of ours from Hinckley. The building is impressive and there still seems a lot to do but the plumbing and electrics are all at the first fix stage so their target to finish in September is probably achievable. We expect to move Caxton sometime in late September or Early October and that is also when Martin and Caroline are going to be cruising around the Leicestershire ring with a short diversion along the Ashby to Market Bosworth. We hope to catch up with them, our new neighbours to be, when they visit.
We left the marina and drove to Market Bosworth station which is the midpoint of the Battlefield line preserved railway. This was the weekend of the annual “Rails & Ales” beer festival organised by the local CAMRA group. When we arrived in the old goods shed, we discovered that they had experienced a really busy day on Saturday and had almost run out of both beer and cider! They still had some though and so we had an experimental half pint of beer and a half cider, very nice too. There were a number of old motorcycles on display, mainly BSA and Triumph alongside traction engines, steam rollers and tractors.
How we used to make roads.
Fordson Tractor
Trip in a brakevan anyone?
GWR 2-8-0 No. 3803
Click Pic for more info.
GWR 2-8-0 No. 3803 at Shackerstone.
Cab and Tender
After we had taken a look around, we wandered over to the other side of the tracks, bought a couple of tickets and waited for the train to arrive. We travelled 1st class to Shenton and then moved to a different coach for the return journey to Shackerstone at the other end of the line. We had a light lunch in the station tearoom at Shackerstone before walking around the village and back to the station to catch the next train back to Market Bosworth.
47 640 “University of Strathclyde
We ended our day with an ice cream before driving back home.
Here are a few links.