Atherstone and Polesworth

We've had a pretty uneventful trip from Coventry Basin through to Polesworth, stopping off last night in a lovely spot just before Atherstone.

Boot Wharf Charity Wharf (thanks Sheila) is a small boatyard/boat graveyard just before Nuneaton. It's quite a scruffy place but has a tableau of statues along one stretch.

We'd stopped for lunch at The Anchor pub beside Bridge 29 and filled up from their water tap which is just inside the beer garden gate. While we were watering up, David continued to the C&RT Hartshill Yard to use their water tap.

Hartshill Yard used to be very neat and tidy but now it's a disgrace, all overgrown with weeds. You'd think that C&RT would make sure their grounds were well maintained. It's not a very good advert for their vegetation management skills is it?

We had a lovely quiet mooring last night, opposite a large field just before Atherstone.

At 5am this morning I had to go outside to chase a pair of ducks off the roof. They were walking up and down and it was so loud it sounded like they were wearing clogs. The canal and field were covered with mist and everywhere looked beautiful as the sun was just breaking through the trees. As a one-off it was lovely, but I hope to NOT see 5am outdoors again any time soon.

Our journey down Atherstone locks was made relatively easy by the sheer numbers of boats coming up in the opposite direction. We passed one up/one down at virtually every lock and only had one lock turned against us by a woman who was in such a hurry she couldn't wait 2 minutes. It back-fired on her though, as the water level in the short pound was already quite low and by turning the lock she wasted the water and her boat scraped on the bottom when coming past me.

The continuing good weather has made the canal-side allotments very busy and everything seems to be growing like mad. The sunflowers seem very early this year.

This gorgeous field of poppies is just beside the railway as you come into Polesworth. We moored there a few years ago and watched a fox and her cubs in the thicket at top left of the photo.

We're now on the Visitor Moorings just outside Polesworth and will carry on again tomorrow.