Day with John, Sharon & Smuggley Bugs & Day Trip to Leicester

Thursday 20^th August

Our Lovely Indian Meal

Cheers, lets tuck in!

We spent a nice morning with John, Sharon and Smuggler walking up to Wigston which was about a 20 minute walk from the canal where there was a pedestrianised shopping centre with the usual mixture of shops, a Sainsburys and an Aldi.  We all got a few supplies, then walked back down to the canal.  In the evening John and Sharon cooked us a lovely Indian meal, lamb with chickpeas, an aubergine dish, spicy green beans and rice, it was absolutely delicious.  I made some Chapattis to go with the Indian meal.  This is only the second time I have made them, but they turned out okay.  I also made a lemon cheesecake for dessert.  We had a lovely evening eating great food, chatting and drinking gin and wine.

Friday 21^st August

Bye Bye John, Sharon & Smuggs

I got up before 8am this morning, that’s early for me!! John and Sharon are chugging on this morning, so I wanted to see them before they went.  We said goodbye to them and waved them off down the canal.  It was lovely seeing them and spending time together.  We may catch up with them again before we all go back to Gloucester, but if not, we will see them in October when we get back on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal.

 

We are off to Leicester today, so we walked up the road to get the bus.  It’s abut a 35 minute bus journey into Leicester and the fare was £4.20 return each, so very reasonable.

Fruit & Veg Market

Leicester is a nice city with lots of different shopping areas.  There is a big outdoor covered market with lots and lots of stalls selling fruit and veg really cheap.  Needless to say, we bought lots and it was really good quality as well.  There were other stalls selling clothes, flowers, cards, etc .  We had a nice walk around all the stalls then went into the indoor market where there are meat and cheese stalls.

We then went to the Lanes where there are independent shops.  We went into the Guild Hall where there was an exhibition about the Magna Carta and the History of Leicester.

Leicester Cathedral

We walked around to the Cathedral, but unfortunately we couldn’t go in as there was a service on.  It was reopening in a couple of hours so we said we would go back later to have a look.

Leicester

We went for a drink and a bit of lunch in one of the many pubs.  It had a Gin Room with over 20 different gins but wasn’t open until 5pm, that was a real pity! I know where to go next time we are here.

We wandered around the shops again, then went to catch the bus back.  When we were on the bus, we realised that we hadn’t gone back to the Cathedral to look inside.  Never mind, we plan to take the boat to Leicester next time we are this way, so will definitely do it then.

We walked back to the boat with all our goodies from the market.  I think Kev’s arms were dropping off by then as the bag was very heavy with potatoes (4 huge ones for £1), Melons (3 for £1), a load of bananas for 50p, two mangos for £1, 12 nectarines for £1 and two punnets of English strawberries for £1.  We could have bought tons more, but then we would have needed a lorry to get it all back!

We are staying here again tonight and turning around tomorrow and going back down the canal.