Days 22 - 28 Bonehill Road Bridge to Alvecote

At Fazeley Junction near Tamworth, where the Coventry Canal meets the Birmingham & Fazeley - we stopped for water.  A bit chilly this morning!

Murals at the junction

Off again - through the bridge and heading for the two locks at Glascote and the Co-op.  The Coventry is a 'contour' canal and very largely avoided having locks and digging cuttings by following the contours of the landscape. Hence it tends to wind about all over the place!

Here the canal runs on an aquaduct over the River Anker

Severn Trent Water official sampling the canal water

Mr and Mrs Waspe were happy for us to photograph Vespiary

Marshwiggle Cottage.  The window boxes are 'planted' with dolls and the sign under the pixie reads 'Charlotte Bill 1875-1964 a regular visitor to this cottage. Royal Nursemaid to Princess Mary and Prince John (the lost prince)'

Striking mix of grasses, reeds and wildflowers along the canal bank.  We notice this year that CRT are leaving more of the canalside plants to flower

Walking to Glascote village in search of provisions

Alvecote with its tranquil marina, a favourite spot of ours.  We're waiting here for a few days while our central heating unit is serviced and minor repairs made as we'd noticed some smoke from the exhaust

The Narrowcraft workshop where Peter is doing our repair.  Here they specialise in restoring historic working boats.  Kangeroo built in 1928 with steel sides and a wooden elm bottom is a fine example...

and setting off to turn round at the 'winding hole' is another, England, built in the early 1900's.  Winding holes - rhymes with tinned - are notches in the canal bank which allow boats which like this one may be up to 72' long, to turn.  They're generally kept in decent repair, although some are overgrown.  It can be extremely tricky to 'wind' in a high wind!

Project?!

The oldest boat we've seen this trip. It's Stafford, built in 1898 as an unpowered 'butty' or towed barge and converted to add this long cabin on the cargo hold in 2008.  It would have carried all kinds of cargo including tea, sugar and cocoa (for Cadbury's) wood, cement, coal, gravel and sand

Catnap's repair is finished, complete with new sock for the exhaust.  This little unit, inside the engine bay and about a foot long, supplies 5 radiators and a hot water tank and heats amazingly quickly.  In summer, of course, we only use the hot water function and only when we haven't been cruising since then the engine heats the hot water