Back from Swindon

Honey Bunny – we continue our journey without her. We miss her every day.

That’s the trouble with Dogs: They just don’t live long enough and you have to face saying goodbye. Sadly our lovely Honey never managed to get beyond this Friday the 13th. It was one of the toughest decisions we have had to make, but she was beginning to suffer with lots of things going wrong and with no real prospect of recovery, we decided it was best to bring her adventure to an end in the kindest way we could, so in the evening of the 13th she finished her last gravy bone biscuit and went to sleep.

Anyway, now are back and getting used to living on board without her we are pausing at the marina for a bit to let Wendy’s back heal a bit, as it is very sore at the moment and she is on lots of drugs to keep the pain in check. The boat feels very empty without Honey and we keep looking for her or expecting to have to clamber over her as she layes completely in the way.

Our next destination for October is Stoke on Trent, where we plan to turn around and then sail into Mercia marina. We will be leaving Barton turn Marina on the 29th.

Back to Swindon

Wendy and Furball at Branston Water Park

So now we need to seriously start to think about the trip back to Swindon. We were going to hire a car, but that does not really work as we need our passports and we cannot put the dog in it! Doh! So, instead we will go into the marina a day early and I will get a cab to the train station at Burton upon trent. Its only a 3 hour trip back to Swindon where I will then pick up the car and drive the 2-3 hour trip back to the boat, load up with Wendy and Honey then drive back again! Sounds like a busy time for old fungus face!!

In the meantime we need to keep ourselves busy, so we will head down to Alrewas (no idea how you pronounce it) and hang around for a few days then turn around and head towards Barton-under-Needwood which is where the marina is. We need to get in on the 12th, so we have almost a week to kill. So in this post, I will take our journey from the very pretty place called Branston (Yes, like the pickle) and then Alrewas and back. Each link will activate when I have written the page!!

Bye bye grand union, hello Trent!

Well, its been a blast and the Grand Union has been really rather spectacular to sail. The Leicester branch is one of the most attractive canals we have witnessed, Weedon and Market Harbourgh were really lovely. Foxton and the locks really are worth a visit and are the jewel in the canal network crown, but all good things come to an end. Having sailed to Kegworth and moored just outside, the tima came to decide what to do until September 13th when we pop back to Swindon. So the choice really comes down to where we can leave the boat securely, and that turns out to be on the canal and not the river. So, west it is – as someone once said (and no, not the bloody petshop boys) go west!!

The marina where we will leave the boat securely moored

Barrow upon Soar and beyond

Jackie and Karl who we have not seen for 12 years!

We left Leicester marina in the morning on the 20th and sailed a short way to Barrow upon Soar. Another very pretty little jaunt hopping on and off the river as it makes its way to Loughborough. We plan to meet up with Jackie and Karl and have a trip down the river with them for a day. We have not seen Jacks for over 12 years so it will be lovely to catch up!

After Leicester

Now that we have sailed from the centre of Leicester we passed through the most built up part, and in places it did look very urban! The locks were generally in poor condition with many of the paddles being broken. Still, overall the sailing was uneventful. I was really surprised at how quickly the canal started going through very rural looking parks, with lovely verdant rural surrounds. Our destination was Leicester marina where we plan to moor up for a few days and then taxi back to Leicester and go to the space center and do some shopping.

I have done away with the menu!. Each page will now have a list of all the other pages which allows you to navigate around far more easily and saves me the hassle of updating the menu each time I add a new page! I will keep adding posts with links to the latest pages in any case, so it is easy to follow our progress still.

Into Leicester

We have heard all kinds of things about Leicester. From being likely to get Killed, sold into slavery, sexually interfered with, having stones thrown at you and that the people are generally horrible all the way to it being a lovely place to visit and the sailing is great! So, apart from the sexual interference (which is my preference) it sounded dire and it also sounded great! What to do? Well, we decided to take a look for ourselves and see what all the fuss is about. So from Foxton we needed to stop at Fleckney where there is a shop to replenish our supplies and on the way we can pump out too, then on to Kilby Bridge which is the last place we can moor before heading into Leicester, then we plan to get to a safe mooring and stop. Ideally we’d get to the center and have a look around for a few days but we will have to see.

Now on to Leicester

So after a lovely break with Ron and Lyn and having popped into Weedon and got the dog sorted, we arrived on the Leicester branch of the Grand Union. The first thing which struck us was just how pretty this part of the GU is. Lots of countryside and nothing else, with most of the villages and towns set back away from the canal. We have heard that Welford is worth a visit, if for no other reason than the pub!