Monday 30 August 2021

West Mids Meander: Day 4

We still seem to be in the habit of waking up early, so this morning we got up and as it was Bank Holiday Monday, we had a cooked breakfast.  It was still only 7.30 when we untied and set off.  The first locks of the day were the staircase pair at Bascote.


I walked all the way from Bascote to Radford Bottom Lock, and on the way I spotted huge earth works for HS2.  This stretch of the Grand Union is very peaceful at the moment, but it won’t be once trains are zooming over.  A local man out walking his dogs suggested that people living there are very unhappy about it.


We moored up in Leamington Spa, just beyond the big mural of the cat and mouse.

I popped to the nearby Co-op for a few things, and then my colleague Judith and her family came to see us.  They have just moved from London to Leamington; they brought enormous cakes from a nearby shop with them, and we had a lovely time enjoying the cakes and catching up.  We then took them for a little ride on board, before dropping them off to walk back to their car.

At Cape Locks we were joined by one of the Navy boats from Calcutt.  They were planning to go up Hatton as well, and as it was only 2.30 we decided we’d join them for a few locks — we’d been thinking of continuing for a little bit anyway.  We stopped four locks up the flight, in a spot we stayed once on Debdale many years ago.

11 miles, 16 locks.  (47 miles, 49 locks)

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