Lazy in the heat

After a quiet night at Huddlesford, we ambled on to Whittington, with the plan of pausing there to get a paper, before carrying on to Hopwas. We had originally thought to go to the Sutton Road Bridge mooring at Tamworth, but a) we're trying to lose time, and b) mooring there on a sunny Easter Saturday night might not be so good.

The first part of this went off without a problem, Sheila steering gently along the Coventry to find an easy mooring on the outskirts of Whittington. We tied, and I popped off to go to the Co-op to get the paper and a further supply of salady stuff.

The Chairman of the Lichfield and Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust lives just by the bridge there, and the signs were up for a coffee morning in aid of the restoration. It didn't seem too much to ask to hang about a further half hour to give them our patronage, so we settled down with the quiz in the Indie magazine to pass the time.

Our decision was rewarded by a chance encounter with Gill Barnard of Farne, who came past walking the dog. We had a nice natter with her, and that took us up to ten o'clock, time for coffee.

Having consumed the coffee, and bought books and a ready to cook slab of rhubarb crumble, we set off again, taking a photo of the festivities as we went:

We've actually stopped just a bit short of Hopwas, before Whittington Ranges, in fact, on a quiet piece of towpath with a nice view. We've spotted a yellow wagtail sitting proudly on top of a bush, and otherwise not done an awful lot, as it continues to be very warm indeed.

We'll stay put tomorrow, then plod on to Tamworth on Monday, so as to get some shopping in at Sainsbury's before going on to Kingsbury Water Park (large stores aren't legally allowed to open on Easter Sunday in the UK).