Heading North

We had a tight schedule for our return as I had a dentist appointment in the morning and the only slot Sainsbury's had to deliver to North Kilworth Marina was at quarter past eleven. However, we had worked out that, if we left the car at home and went straight there by taxi, it would be much simpler and quicker than getting a train from Rugby, with taxis at each end and probably cost less overall. The timing worked perfectly, with the groceries arriving just after we had finished checking in at the Marina office.

The news on the electrical investigation we had left them with was less good. They told us the original batteries had been gassing and were bulging. I have to admit that, when we first took the boat over, I did not realise that these batteries required so much water and was lazy about checking them and topping them up. They ran very dry and when I did fill them there was a lot of hissing and fizzing for a couple of days but they settled down and they were still charging and providing electricity. The view was that this is probably what did the damage and regardless of their ability to provide electricity, they were dangerous and we should change them. This was not what we wanted to hear but in the end, it seemed pointless to ignore the advice we had asked for, so we agreed on a new set to be fitted the next morning. We moved over to the workshop to have the batteries fitted and had a long conversation about how to try and ensure the same thing didn't happen to these. By the time we paid for our mooring, the batteries and had also taken on over a hundred litres of diesel at cost of living crisis prices, the old acronym BOAT for Bung On Another Thousand was sounding horribly true.

With all that sorted out, time was getting on, so we escaped the marina entrance, despite the best efforts of the prevailing wind to send us the other way and headed back through North Kilworth Wharf to moor up at the place near Lubenham where we had spent a couple of nights on the way up. On the way, Archie was secured on the deck by a lead attached to his life jacket and he would wander from side to side looking out. At one point, Sue and I both looked down and couldn't see him, then looked to the other side and there he was, hanging over the side with his bottom and back legs in the water, body surfing alongside, with not a bark or a whimper to let us know he was overboard. We were horrified, although he can only have been there for a few seconds before we realised and yanked him back on deck but he showed no sign of distress at all and seemed none the worse for the experience. He had obviously missed his footing and slipped in so, of course, we have tightened the lead one more notch so he can't go that far again.

On Friday morning we set off down to Foxton Locks again. We planned to moor up at the bottom, this time just past the Market Harborough Arm, before moving on towards Leicester. It was another fine, sunny day and we arrived at the locks in good time. "Rambler" had been trying to book in ahead of us but then turned out not to be actually ready to go down, so we were able to go straight in.

Starting Back Down Foxton Locks

Once again we had the help of a small girl most of the way down, far outweighing any input from the volunteer lock keepers on duty. We were moored up by midday and had time for a walk around the other side of Foxton Junction, via a rather uninspiring place called Gumley,

Gumley High Street

We settled down to the only Men's Semi Final in this year's Wimbledon Championship. Norrie got off to a good start to take the first set 6-2 and maybe set the scene for a real contest. Then, as we have seen so often before, the Djokovic machine took a step back, assessed the situation and quietly changed up a gear to dominate the rest of the match. Brilliant but somehow soulless. Still, all done in time to go up to the Foxton Locks Inn for a couple of pints and a planning session.

We had intended to move on on Saturday morning but after a late start we went over to the Bridge 61 café for brunch and watched the water getting busier and busier. We decided not to get involved and stay put for another day. Sue wanted to get stuck in to some new mosquito nets for the portholes, with more hot weather on the way, while I took Archie for a walk around Foxton and then did some more of the endless cycle of touching up the paintwork.

Foxton Church

Sunday, July tenth, met the meteorologists expectations of getting steadily hotter and gave more credibility to the predictions of hotter still to come. We left Foxton and moved up to the aqueduct over a River Sence, one of many, near Wistow. A great mooring in most respects but with no shade or conversely, great input for the solar panels.

We were moored up in time to watch the Wimbledon men's singles final. Despite his impressive skill I have never really warmed to Djokovic and almost always find myself rooting for his opponent, despite having no expectation that they could win. I would never have expected to be cheering Djokovic on, as I found myself doing in this match, entirely as a reaction to Kyrgios' childish antics at times. They spoilt a really great match and made him look as though he simply couldn't cope with the pressure of losing a few points. I'm sure a lot of people are reminded of the young John McEnroe and it is no surprise that that old fogie seems to be one of the most vocal apologists for Kyrgios. Djokovic, of course, refused to be drawn in, changed up smoothly through the gears and took him apart in the fourth set tie-break.

On Monday we had planned to stay put and visit the Wistow Rural Centre a short walk away. We did go there and had a good walk with Archie before the worst heat of the day. The café was open and we had coffee there but half the shops were shut because it was Monday. We are really not sure when Monday stopped being part of the working week but it seems to be, for retail, what Friday has become for office workers. When we got back we did move a few hundred yards down to a space vacated by "Badger" which was opposite an area of tall trees. Truth to tell, however, the sun stayed in a firm line along the navigation so we didn't benefit from much more shade. A great excuse for another barbecue though.

Archie All Ready For A BBQ

We expected Tuesday to be a relatively tough day. The canal would soon start to run along the outskirts of Leicester at South Wigston and then bend north toward the city round Glen Parva and we aimed to moor up at Blue Banks Lock south of Aylestone. We covered seven and a half miles with fourteen locks over six and a half hours with a service stop at Kilby Bridge.

The weather was more overcast but damp and humid and some short spells of rain at lunchtime only served to make it feel steamier and more uncomfortable. On the last few locks we caught up with "Woteva" and started to go through with him. He was single handed and enthusiastic but seemed rather clueless and it turned out he had bought the boat four days earlier and this was his first ever trip. He didn't know about locks or mooring, had no specific route or destination in mind and had only received some vague advice from the previous owner about handling the boat. As we left the lock we found that we couldn't slow down enough to avoid catching him up. At the next lock I just asked if everything was alright, as he had seemed to be going rather slowly. He said he had been told to keep the engine below one thousand revolutions per minute. All engines are different but for most people that would be close to tick-over. He was happy to accept my suggestion that he try pushing it a bit harder and see what happened. This time he set off at a reasonable pace and we were able to follow without being in danger of ramming him from behind.

We parted company with "Woteva" as we had reached our intended mooring, which proved to be an excellent site with an improved towpath and a long stretch of new looking and well spaced rings. We had just come through a heavily built-up section running through South Wigston, with the gardens coming down to the canal on both sides, in various conditions from manicured to wilderness, including some really elaborate efforts like this one

Some Back Gardens Are More Inventive Than Others

We had thought it would be like that all the way into Leicester. In fact, probably because of flooding risk from the River Soar, there is a wide buffer zone around Glen Parva and Aylestone with a large country park and the Great Central Way, a designated cycling and hiking path on the course of the old railway, running right through it, with fields and woods all around. The weather had freshened up slightly by the time we stopped and we were able to walk across, follow the line up as far as Aylestone and visit The Black Horse there, before crossing back at Pack Horse Bridge and following the towpath south again to return to the boat.

The next day took us into Leicester itself. The five locks on the way seemed slow, hard work, despite meeting a number of boats on the way, which usually speeds things up. A flock of canoes out for summer kids activities needing to get out of the way obviously didn't help.

Canoes Creating A Hazard At The Lock

Coming into St. Mary Mills Lock you know you are now in the city, just from the graffiti.

St Mary Mills Lock

The wide straight approach into Leicester feels quite impressive and it is possible to moor along quite a lot of the bank on the towpath side. We needed a major shop and intended to moor up as close as possible to Tesco. We saw their sign a little earlier than expected, pulled over and found the entrance just at the top of the steps. Sadly, this turned out to be a Tesco Express and was declared unsuitable for serious grocery shopping. The Tesco Extra store we had been aiming for was about ten minutes walk further on and some way from the river.

Having completed our mission and hauled the bags back on board we set off to find more secure mooring a few minutes further on. We had used the pontoon at Castle Gardens a couple of years before but that was full today. Fortunately there is another secure mooring just through the bridge from there where there was plenty of space. Friar's Mill is inside a Business Centre of some sort and you walk out into city back streets but once you know your way around you soon realise it is no further from the centre than the other sites.

In the afternoon we wandered up into the city, called in at the Visitor Centre to collect some self-guided walks and had a stroll around trying to get our bearings for the next day. It was a hot day again, though with a little more breeze. We stopped at a bar on the way back to the boat and it felt almost continental as we sat drinking in the sunshine.

Our previous visit had been in the autumn and at a time when Leicester had just been declared a hotbed for one new COVID strain or another. We had stopped overnight, I had ventured out in the dark and got a takeaway from the student end of town and with everything pretty much shut down, we had left the next morning. On this visit, in bright sunshine and with the city seemingly in full swing it felt very different and we spent Bastille Day on Thursday exploring the old city above the river properly with their Story of Leicester walk.

It took a while to get the shape of it and it was disappointing to find the cathedral completely closed down for renovation. Considering how recently they confirmed that they had found Richard III in the car park it was a bit surprising how much emphasis was now placed on that. What did they focus on as Leicester's heritage before that, I wonder? Overall, we quite liked the original city which you come to realise is really quite compact, mostly within five minute's walk of a central point.

It proved to be a longer day than we had anticipated and certainly wiped Archie out for the evening, though he was very well behaved all day. There were lots of interesting features and unexpected history along the way. The Town Hall was very impressive.

The Town Hall Square

St. George's Cultural Quarter had lots of little studios and galleries and was the setting for these striking murals on the face of the old Bus Station.

Impressive as these were, the street art was not confined to the Cultural Quarter and there seemed no reason to place those above the other examples we found.

Thomas Cook featured almost as heavily as Richard III, including his very own statue outside the railway station. The railway station, itself, has an interesting history and you can see the four arches, clearly marked as Arrivals and Departures, designed to facilitate access via Hansom cab with an in and out arch for each.

Leicester Railway Station - These Departure Arches Are Mirrored For Arrivals

The next day seemed unnecessarily busy. I had kept getting reminders from Specsavers that I should have a routine two year eye test. It would be months before we would be arranging something like that back home, so a big city like Leicester was an opportunity to book an appointment for that there. First thing Friday morning I went up into the city to do that while Sue did some washing and we could then refill the water tank.

We had also been receiving warnings for several days of an impending heatwave so, leaving Leicester later on Friday morning, we had a specific destination in mind where we hoped to find some shade. We had four locks to get through and stopped off in Birstall on the way. We hadn't been here before but the short walk up into the village was worthwhile. A nice place, clearly growing, with all the amenities you could ask for from a small village.

Central Downtown Birstall

After a quick look around we moved on to Leicester Marina to get diesel and all the other services we needed to prepare for an extended period in one place. It is a tricky turn into the marina entrance and then seems a long way before you reach the marina basin itself. One of the few places not yet absorbed into the AquaVista empire, its independence is betrayed by its rather run down idiosyncrasy. There is a service dock but it is a job to find someone to serve you. They insist on a strict 60:40 split for the fuel, which is normally at the boat owner's discretion and on this occasion, could only accept cash payment. Despite a hefty spend on diesel, they still charged extra to use the Elsan disposal, which is little more than a hole in the ground. Nevertheless, our options were limited so we paid up and moved on. The route out, to turn round and head back to the distant entrance, looks as if  it will be tricky but actually proved quite straightforward. There is a big pole sticking up out of the water and if you treat it as a roundabout there is genuinely enough room to get round.

We had one more lock at Thurmaston and just beyond there is Watermead Country Park, a very large area of park and lakes with trees either side of the cut. We had moored here before and we tried to find a spot that would keep us in shade for as much of the day as possible. We finally settled on one place and moored up at about four-thirty.

That was it from Friday afternoon until the following Wednesday. Every day in between was blazing hot with temperatures as high as forty degrees Celsius and more. We would try to get out for a short walk around the lakes, keeping in the shade as much as possible, fairly early in the morning or in the late evening. In the early part of the day I tried to do a little light varnishing, before the heat made it impossible. Otherwise, our time was mainly spent trying to keep out of the sun and trying not to move, especially Archie in his thick coat of ginger hair. On Saturday morning there was a little coffee truck in the car park whose coffee was very good. He told us he was there every day over the weekend and Monday but would usually take one or two days off during the week. We never saw him again! The ice cream van turned up again on Sunday but left early in the afternoon. The truth is that there were very few visitors to this busy park that weekend. Presumably most people were similarly staying indoors, out of the sun and using whatever means they had to stay cool.

One thing that didn't require much movement was planning for the next steps of our journey, although it has to be said that even thinking seemed to require an inordinate amount of energy. We had those plans in early September, the detail of which which gave us a lot to think about, in addition to just where would we go next. They required a lot of different arrangements to be linked together. We found little snags at every step, like works on the line between Leamington Spa and Banbury on just the weekend we wanted to return but we overcame them all, one by one.

As regards our immediate next steps, given what we had already decided in principle, we plotted a route through Loughborough and onto the Trent, to follow the tidal river to Keadby, calling at Nottingham, Newark and Lincoln on the way. We might take a side trip on the Chesterfield Canal but then follow the South Yorkshire Navigations to Goole and back to Selby, to the mooring we had booked for two weeks in September. After that, we would head up the Ouse to York.

From there we would have to retrace our steps back to Selby. For our return from there, we generally planned on following the Leeds Liverpool to Wigan, taking the Leigh Branch onto the Bridgewater Canal, then the Trent & Mersey, the Middlewich Branch, the Shropshire Union and home via a few other more familiar routes.

All the time, while considering these plans, of course, we were seeing increasing numbers of closures being announced all around the country. Sometimes these were due to specific incidents but mostly they were all about the lack of water and the continued absence of rain. Thinking about September in mid-July, in Britain, it seemed likely  that rain would, indeed, fall and in quantity before then. If not, we could expect to have to change our plans again considerably.