Warwick

We had a nice slow cruise this morning. It was warm and sunny and too nice to rush anywhere. Pity I couldn’t say the same for 3 boats who motored past us later, going so fast they could have towed water skiers behind them!  We’d moored up outside The Moorings pub at Leamington Spa as Google had showed a Pets At Home store and we were getting very low on dog food. When he was young, Charlie had really bad eczema which defied all the medications prescribed by the vet. After exhaustive internet research we tried changing his diet to James Wellbeloved Hypoallergenic dog food and low and behold his skin problems cleared up almost overnight. We normally buy this in 2kg bags and always try to have a couple in stock but lately we’ve been struggling to find it so this time we got a 15kg bag which I’ll split and re-bag tomorrow and stash away in any spaces I can find. Charlie thought it was his birthday!

Just round the bend from The Moorings is a Lidl store with a couple of moorings outside.

These were full so we stayed at The Moorings, took the granny trolley and did some shopping. We haven’t been in a Lidl before and I was very impressed. The fruit and veg was good quality and half the price of Tesco. They have an extensive selection of continental cooked meats and the salami with fennel which we had later for lunch was delish! Roger was pleased to see that they have a good selection of bottled ales and stocked up on Bishop’s Finger at £1.39 a bottle.  His favourite beer, Old Speckled Hen, is currently on special offer at Tesco so when we arrived at the Warwick branch later in the afternoon I took the trolley again and cleared the shelf. That should keep us going for a while and the beer store is now full.

If you need other shopping there’s a large Sainsbury’s, Homebase, Argos, Halfords and others at The Shires Retail Park about 5minutes walk from The Moorings.

We finally managed to pair up with another boat this afternoon and shared the two Cape Locks. We moored at the end of a long line of moored boats and went into the lock-side Cape of Good Hope pub for a couple of pints of their own beer “Two Llocks” That’s not a spelling mistake and it’s pronounced Tw’ollocks. It was very nice and a more realistic price at £2.90 a pint.

The moorings here are quite dark as the canal is over shadowed by large apartments on the opposite side and large trees on the towpath side.