Past the battlefield

It's a shame that they've changed their minds about where the Battle of Bosworth took place. There used to be really good offside moorings from where you could walk across the fields to the Battlefield Centre, but they've gone now. There is a decent edge on the towpath side, but no rings or Armco— you'd have to tie to pins.

We've had a good couple of days boating along this extremely pleasant waterway. I had to check the date stamp on an old photo to find out that the last time we came this way was in 2005, and even then I don't think we came right to the end. 

The time before that was on our second ever hire boat holiday in 1976. We hired from Barney in Braunston, where Wharf House are now. It was the year of the great drought, we'd taken the boat for a fortnight and almost all of the lock flights were closed. We did every inch of available water whilst Elanor lay in her carry cot on the top bunk and watched the trees go past the windows.

She's still got quite a thing about trees, not to mention boats.

Stoke Golding is a very pleasant village with a basic shop which was shut when we walked up the hill yesterday (Sunday) afternoon. There are good offside visitor moorings there, as there are at Sutton Cheney where stopped briefly to dump rubbish today.

By setting off at eight, we got to Market Bosworth at half ten. The new marina here is well on, but frankly I doubt if it will all be ready for the intended September opening. Mind you, it looks as if the pontoons and water and electric supply will be there, it's the building that has a lot still to do to it, as in the walls aren't quite finished.  Probably boats will be able to moor but some of the facilities will take a time to arrive, I guess.

Apparently there will not be any residential moorings, at least at first.

We walked up the hill to the town centre before lunch. It's quite a slog, about a mile up hill, but the return trip is much easier loaded and downhill. We've been pottering in the boat since, watching the latest load of washing dry on the airer in the bows and catching up with internet stuff. There are two drawbacks to the Ashby, the dearth of sources of supplies and the feeble mobile signals. Here we have a bit of Vodafone, a bit of 3 but a good T-mobile connection.

Finally, an unusual event: on emptying the water bowl we leave out for passing dogs before we set off yesterday, I found a small frog swimming about in it. It seemed unharmed when I tipped it out; maybe it was just cooling off in the heat...