Restoration works

It's been another lovely spring day and the flowers in the roof boxes are blooming. The wallflowers have lasted all winter and the spring bulbs are starting to come through.

On Monday I said that when we'd been to Canal Central it was closed and looked like it had been for a while. Well it is still open, we called yesterday. It's advertised as being a community shop and tea rooms and is actually listed on the internet as being a post office branch. I went in but was obviously interrupting some form of commity meeting which was being held as everyone turned round and glared at me!  The only provisons I could see on sale were a few packets of biscuits and the only things in the fridge were a couple of packets of bacon and 1 bottle of milk 1 day before its sell-by date.  I asked the guy behind the "tea-room" counter if they had any fresher milk and if they still operated as a post office but he couldn't be bothered answering me and instead shouted loudly for his wife!  Not very nice, maybe he'd have been more welcoming if I'd wanted something from his cafe. She didn't have any fresher milk and as it was £1.95 I declined to buy it. She also told me that they ceased being a Post Office branch almost 2 years ago.

Canal Central

Today we carried on to the end of navigation which is only about a mile further along the canal.

end of navigation

anyone know what a "chanely" is?

We still needed milk and a friend of ours had told us about the Co-op at Pant so we walked along the towpath. The canal carries on in water for about a mile and you can see how it's been restored so far, with new stone walls and waterproof membrane along the waters edge.

This is the end of the section in water.

new road bridge lining

first section not in water, under restoration

another, totally separate,  section being restored

site of old winding hole?

The local free range poultry like the cleared canal bed, must be full of worms.

Bantam cockerel

Guinea fowl

Almost 3 miles later we found the Co-op at Pant. It's up on the main road and is very well stocked and has a proper Post Office counter, although this closes at 3pm.  When we got back to the boat we decided to move back to Maesbury for the night as we needed a pump-out at the service block.  I'll tell you about that tomorrow. Right now we're off to try the beer in the Navigation.