Monday 18th
February 2019
We were deliberating as to whether or not to move today. We want to be
in Atherstone for the weekend. Brenda has a prescription to pick up there and
we are meeting with Martin and Michelle. It is only7 miles away with not a lot
in between.
Anyway, move we did with the intention of going just 4 miles to the
Anchor pub at Hartshill. We moved slowly through Nuneaton, with no wish or
intention of stopping. The southern part of Nuneaton didn’t look a bit
inviting, the nicer parts of the town seem to be the far side. One thing of note,
we have never seen so many allotments, and all well maintained. We saw four
allotment sites that must have numbered a few hundred individual allotments
altogether.
The north side of Nuneaton is dominated by Mount Judd, also known as
the “Nuneaton Nipple”. This is a man-made hill of spoil from Judkins Granite Quarry
that ceased quarrying in 1996. At 518 feet high it is visible for miles as the
countryside hereabouts is quite flat. We first saw the mound from Ambion Hill,
the Battle of Bosworth site some 10 miles away. It was very distinctive even
from that distance.
After quarrying ceased the site became a landfill site being used for this
purpose from 1996 until 2009 when it was capped off. In May 2018 a planning
application was submitted for a housing development.
Beyond Nuneaton delightful countryside is reached and we decided to
moor up. We were in the process of tying up when another guy off a boat came passed
carrying a boats window. He told us his boat had been vandalised in the same spot
we were mooring up in. Apparently kids had broken in through a window and
trashed the inside. And yet the canal here is very quiet. We would have been
safe enough because we were not going to leave the boat. However, we decided to
move and went just another 100 yards beyond bridge 27 and moored opposite the
Springwood Haven Marina.
We had covered just 3 miles.
No sooner had we tied up when it started to rain very heavily. While
it didn’t last long the towpath became a quagmire.
I painted the shelf of the world so now, once the paint has cured, we
can get some of our knick-knacks out. We are both looking forward to that. We
spent the afternoon watching TV, a thing we don’t do very often and it made a nice
change.
We got an e-mail off CRT complaining that we had overstayed, presumably
at Sutton Stop. We had been there for 14 nights before and over the time of Peter’s
funeral but had then gone into Coventry before returning for a further 2
nights. It was during the two night stay that our registration number was taken
by the linesman. I had told him that we had been into Coventry and returned but
of course, the computer system would only see that you have overstayed and the
e-mail would be generated automatically. We told CRT why we had been there so
long, that we hadn’t actually overstayed and that we normally move on a very
regular basis. They agreed with this and so have removed the notification from our
registration. Big Brother is ever present.
Weather: a colder day and breezy. Heavy rain in the afternoon.
Day Total: 0 locks; 3 miles; 0 Tunnels; 0 Swing Bridges; 0 Boat Lift;
engine running hours 2.4
Overall Total: 331 locks; 731 miles; 32 tunnels; 7 Swing Bridges; 2
Boat Lifts; engine running hours 458.5
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