Saturday 2nd March 2019



Rain was forecast in the afternoon so we went for a longish walk in the morning. We followed the path from Alvecote along the Miners Walk to Pooley Country Park. The walk was just under 4 miles and we both enjoyed it. The walk was mainly through woodland with lots of wetland and pools caused by mining subsidence. We finished up at the colliery spoil heap with the Tower of Gold on top but, from this side, there was a footpath to the top. Considering this is spoil from underground mining, the extent of it is staggering. It must be in the region of 100m high and possibly 500m in diameter. A lot of spoil. The views really are stunning. We could see to the Nuneaton “Nipple” in one direction, and the power station at Rugeley and Burton-upon-Trent in the other. A guy we met was telling us that there used to be a pub at the foot of the hill called the Four Counties, the pub was supposed to lie at the junction between Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.

Back at the boat Brenda made soup while I tied a Turks Head onto the tiller where the weed hatch cover opens against it. There is no red paint left otherwise the tiller would be finished. It does look good as it is though.

We had three young lads fishing around the boat. They were a bit rough looking but it is always good to see young lads engaged in something like fishing rather than getting into trouble somewhere. They were fishing on lures and had caught some sizeable Zander. One of them caught his lure on some bushes opposite the boat so I went across and cut the offending branch off. Then another got snagged on the bottom. We had good fun pushing the boat out with these lads standing on the back end to get above the snag but unfortunately, the line snapped.

We have been binge watching a Saxon/Viking series called “The Last Kingdom” and so sat watching them most of the evening.

It must be very mild outside tonight as the boat is very hot with just a small fire in. However, she is getting buffeted something terrible with strong gusts of wind.

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