On Monday we slowly cruised through the countryside stopping a couple of miles from a place called Stanford upon Avon so we could have a look round the church which supposedly has some fine medieval stained glass and some good wood carvings but like every church we have been to it was closed. What are churches for if you can't go in and pray in times of crisis? I can’t quite get my head round the logic of shops and pubs being open but churches being closed, it reinforces my prejudice against religion.
Still it was a nice walk to and from the village. Further along the canal we finally managed to buy some Calor Gas after the three previous marinas were closed so we no longer have to worry about being able to boil water for a cup of tea. On Monday evening we stopped for the night in a village called Crick which is pronounced Crik so as not to confuse it with Crich where the tramway museum is in Derbyshire (that’s the excuse a local gave me).
We were pleased to find a pub doing food but despite being close to the M1 it is a mobile "not spot" so we were unable to update the blog or get the next days weather forecast.
First thing Tuesday morning we climbed Crick Hill to get a better view of the M1 motorway and a mobile signal, picture of the hill at the top of the page.
After that we set sail through the Crick tunnel which is almost a mile long and, excitement upon excitement, we met another boat coming the other way in the middle! It takes a great deal of concentration to steer a boat down one side of the tunnel, it is a bit like those 1970’s computer games of trying to land a spaceship on the moon, just to make it more enjoyable there was quite a lot of cold water dropping through the roof on my head.
There is about a foot of space either side of the boat but amazingly no nasty crashes into either the other boat or the side, I am feeling quite pleased with myself, I might get Gill to do the next tunnel so I don’t spoil my record.
Road, canal, rail and motorway builders all look for the same topography, that is no hills. When driving to the Midlands from London this means the Watford Gap, we all "love" the services but either side you have the A5 (built by the Romans), the canal, railway and the motorway all taking advantage of the gap, it all makes for a very noisy bit of countryside.
We left plenty of slack in the timetable on this trip so we could take a day or two off when it rained only it hasn’t, not a drop in 15 days. Consequently we have a day or so to fill, we did consider a train ride to Coventry but in the end decided on a diversion to a place called Weedon which was an ordnance depot built when Napoleons invasion was expected. A full report will be published tomorrow.
It finally started to rain this afternoon and more is forecast for tomorrow when we explore the town before heading back to the hire base on Thursday.