This morning we carried on east to the village of Wootton Rivers. Wikipedia says the village’s population has halved in the 20th century and most of it’s facilities have closed however the most important remains, the Royal Oak, which serves an excellent pint of beer and some perfectly edible food although it did take over half an hour to arrive despite us being the only customers. It takes time to defrost food properly! The engineers who built railways and canals have one aim in common, they don’t like hills and consequently if there is an easy way across a line of hills both railway and canal follow the same route.
For this reason we decided not to go any further as any moorings would be right next to a main railway line which is not a great place to get some sleep so we turned around and are now back in the same mooring as last night.
Many of the houses in these parts have thatched roofs and almost every village has a village green with a cricket pitch, quintessential English communities.
It seems boat owners try to give their boats unusual names which they hope will show their individuality, “Ready Steady Slow” is one next to us at the moment and I have already mentioned “Adventure Before Dementia” most are not very original but I must confess to chuckling at Sir Rhosis of the River.
Tomorrow we will move 10 or 12 miles back towards Devizes where we need to be on Friday night as we have a table booked at a nice restaurant.