Stoke Golding
A bit of a catch up
By now you will have read from Sue’s posts that I am in a bit of a sorry state. Yes, I should have done what I was told and got to the dentist sharper than I did. I didn’t though and as a result had one of the roughest night’s non-sleep that I can remember.
Back to yeserday though, we left our mooring at the Hawkesbury engine house and after filling the water tank, made our way to Marston junction where we made the wide sweep necessary to gain access to the Ashby canal. This is only the second time that we have been along here in Caxton but it is a trip that we made many times on Phoenix III. After three hours travelling, we pulled up outside the Lime Kilns on the A5. After making my dental appointment, we walked home and then drove into Hinckley to do some shopping.
On returning to Caxton, we just hung around until it was time for bed. Sue prescribed some codeine tablets that she had for the pain that I had. I notice on her post that she says I was a bit spaced out. Far from it, the effect was horrible, how anyone gets addicted to them is beyond me and I’ll never take them again.
Anyway after the rough night, we went home again to kill time until the dental appointment and when we returned to Caxton, we set off again for the short hop to Stoke Golding where we have moored outside Nigel’s Ashby canal centre marina. As we tied up, another boat was doing the same just a little way in front of us, I suspect that it is nb Muleless by the look of the bow and ordinarily I would have gone to say hello as I read their blog but with having a badly swollen face and a bit of a miserable outlook today, I’m not in a sociable mood. Maybe tomorrow, if the swelling has subsided, we’ll see.
A number of working boats passed us by in the evening as they made their way to Shackerstone for the festival this weekend. Just before ten, we heard the unmistakable sound of a Bolinder engine, we could see his headlight but when it passed by it was too dark to identify the boat.
On to Market Bosworth
The high winds of yesterday had been subsiding before we went to bed last night and by this morning they had all but gone with just the odd gust remaining. We were boating by 7.30 and pulled up at Sutton Cheney Wharf where we did our chores just over half an hour later. On the way, we saw nb Sunny Brid which belongs to one of the team who electrified Sue’s heart at Glenfield Hospital a few weeks ago.
We attempted to buy some coal from the fuel boat that was tied at the wharf but there was no one board when we called so we had to pass on that one.
We only passed one more boat on our trip to Market Bosworth but despite the cool, dull weather it was a pleasant enough journey. When we reached the site of the new marina we could see that the contractors were preparing to remove the clay plug from the entrance and connect it to the canal. We passed through and winded just beyond bridge 44. This of course was the first time that we had turned Caxton since we left Stone almost a week ago. There were no issues, in some respects, the move was easier in the longer boat because the bow had to be touching the bank and then it was a matter of pushing the tiller over and leaving the rest to the prop.
Half an hour later and we were back near the visitor moorings where we tied up and headed of into town for some lunch and to do a bit of shopping. We had a belated birthday lunch for Sue at the Black Horse before returning to our mooring. After we deposited our shopping at the boat we walked over to meet Chris Hubbard who is the new manager at the marina and he gave us a private tour of the site as well as explaining about the facilities that were being installed there. We returned to Caxton at four o’clock and five minutes later the heavens opened! An hour later and it was a different day altogether, Sue sitting in the cratch with the windows open and the canalside covers up underneath blue skies and full sunshine.
Tomorrow we will need to head back to Hinckley for a few days before resuming our journey to Braunston at the weekend.
Short hop to Stoke Golding on Sue’s birthday
Strong winds continued to blow during the night and then we had torrential rain in the early hours of the morning. We considered our options and then decided to stay put for the day, the wind then dropped and the sky brightened so we changed our mind and set off. With the wind being not as strong as yesterday, progress was quite good despite the odd showers that came and went.
We were surprised to find the visitor moorings at Stoke Golding completely deserted so we moored there and phoned our boat painting friend Cliff and his partner, Liz. They visited us for an hour and we gave them the grand tour of Caxton, both were suitably impressed of course.
The rain had gone but the wind had picked up so we spent the rest of the afternoon just lazing around indoors.