Monday 8th
June
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| Pat & Patrick in Basin Lock |
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| The Three P's off on the River Avon |
The three P’s (Pat, Patrick and Poochie) are off down the
River Avon today, so we went down to the lock which goes out on to the river
and worked the lock for them and waved them off down the River. It was sad to see them go, we have had a
lovely few days with them, lots of fun and laughter, but now it is time to go
our separate ways. Hopefully, our paths
will cross again later in the year.
We walked back to the boat, then walked up to Morrisons,
then walked around the town. We are just
going to chill out here in Stratford for one more day, then off back up the
canal tomorrow. The basin was very quiet for most of the day, but a few boats
came in during the late afternoon and evening.
Tuesday 9th June
While we have been in Stratford and have been looking
around, most of the restaurants and pubs seem to get their meat from a local
butcher called Barry the Butcher. So we
had a look around to see if we could find his shop and we did, but
unfortunately it was shut on Sunday and Monday, but they opened at 7am today. So this morning, we went up to
Barry the Butcher’s shop and bought some meat, etc. It all looked really good and they were
friendly.
We then decided to go for Breakfast in Wetherspoons, its
cheap and cheerful and good value. Had
a nice breakfast, then back to the boat and off we chugged.
We have had a really nice time in Stratford, its such a nice
place and great mooring in the basin right in the centre of everything, but now
its time to leave.
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| Leaving Bancroft Basin |
We chugged off under the low bridge, then up the canal and
under another low bridge, although they didn’t seem as low as when we came
down, we think the level of the canal has dropped and into the first of the
five locks we are doing today.
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| Lock with difficult gate |
On through the next lock and at the third lock, there was a
boat coming down, which was lucky as the beam on that lock is really heavy and
has a white gate on it at an angle which is really awkward to open and close,
but the lady from the boat going down stayed and helped me shut the gate, very
kind.
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| Leaving Stratford Behind |
On up the canal to the next lock which was set for us and
finally to the last lock for today.
Safely through there, we stopped for water at the water point, then
chugged under the bridge and moored at the bottom of the Wilmcote flight of
locks where we moored on the way down as it is a nice sunny spot. We did two miles today and 5 locks, that’s
enough for one day!
We walked up to the Aldi which is not too far away to get
final supplies, then back to the boat. It has been another lovely sunny day and evening.
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| Moored at Bottom of Wilmcote Flight of Locks |
It took us ages to find Barry the Butcher. He once gave us loads of ice to put with our meat in the days before we had a fridge.
ReplyDeleteHave only just caught up on the last couple of weeks of your blog. It's a shame we couldn't have timed Droitwich for when you were at Hanbury – but we found a good butcher there too, rare breeds, had the best steak we've ever had – Dexter rump.
We found him using Google, good old Google!! We are having the mince we bought from him tonight in a spag bol, so hope it tastes as good as it looked! Yes it was a shame we couldn't meet up at Hanbury, but hopefully we can sort out to meet a bit later in the year.
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