Dippy Dino and glorious glass

Tuesday 10^th June; Coventry Basin to Hawkesbury Junction

The basin is a surprisingly quiet place to be once the traffic dies down (and there was no function in the music venue beside us), though we did have to put the porthole bungs in because of the lights.  When I took Jess out before breakfast I had a closer look at the improved towpaths.

We went further than usual because she will be home alone for most of the morning.  It rained a bit over breakfast but after that it was mostly warm and sunny.  Our plan was to spend the morning in the Herbert art gallery which we’d thoroughly enjoyed on our last visit, maybe have coffee and cake in the café, lunch out near the boat and visit the cathedral in the afternoon.  First we had an unplanned stroll round the city centre, after I’d sent us the wrong way, and finally found the art gallery.  It was plastered with announcements that Dippy was in residence!  I do like fossils.

Dippy the Diplodocus is a cast of the original fossil found in the USA.  It would have been around 24-26 metres long in life and weigh about 15 tons.  They ate the tough leaves of conifers and gingko trees, and their 40+ teeth were replaced about every 35 days.  I wonder how that was worked out from a fossil? 

Long whippy tail

Dippy ‘lived’ in the Natural History Museum in London (we saw it with the children in the late 1980s) and is currently on loan here in Coventry until next year.  There were a few more fossils, including an ichthyosaur skull found at the Harbury Cement Quarry in Warwickshire – you can see the chimney of the cement works as you go up Stockton Locks on the Grand Union.

There were some nice bronze sculptures, including a couple by Jacob Epstein and a Barbara Hepworth.

Epstein’s Yehudi Menuhin

One small gallery was devoted to Coventry during and after the war, and was very affecting with photos and eye-witness accounts of the day after the bombing raid that destroyed the original cathedral.  The rest of the place was frankly disappointing.  Only one other gallery was covered in the entry price, and was about Lady Godiva, with the story being played (loudly) on a loop.  It seemed to be aimed at families with children.  The remaining four galleries had been given over to an exhibition of dinosaurs built with Lego, apparently built with precision in consultation with experts, and placed in appropriate dioramas.  We would have had a look except that you had to pay £4 for the privilege, and weren’t even tempted by the chance to dig in a sandpit to find a fossil.  It was still only midday, so we waved goodbye to Dippy and pondered our next move.  I was hungry but it wasn’t lunchtime, so we went past the cathedral and round the corner to Sainsburys. 

Lady Godiva

We could fit what we needed into our rucksacks and a single bag, so we sat in the sun and fortified ourselves with a snack before going into the cathedral.

The Archangel Michael defeats Lucifer, who is ejected from Heaven

I knew there was an event taking place for clergy and other people of faith, but it was quiet when we went in.  I wanted to sit and look at the wonderful baptistry window designed by John Piper.  It’s wonderful when the sun isn’t shining, and stunning when it is.

Piper is reported to have said there was no symbolism to the window – just a ‘burst of glory’.  Precisely.  At the very bottom of the picture is the font, made from a boulder brought from a hillside near Bethlehem.

After a peaceful ten minutes, the cathedral started to fill with chatter as people finished their morning discussions and came out for lunch – a buffet laid out on a long row of tables.  No reverential hush for this lot, and our quiet appreciation was totally disrupted.  We have been here before, so we went round paying most attention to the rest of the windows and the carvings of bible verses on the walls.

More glory

It was crowded and noisy now, there must have been several hundred people swarming around or sitting in groups and chattering nineteen to the dozen as they munched their lunch, so we went back to the boat.  We had lunch outside the Playwright’s Café.  Dave enjoyed his mini-breakfast but I wished I had chosen something other than a burger.  Chips were ok though.

It was too hot now to leave the dog in the boat.  There was nothing else we wanted to see, so at 3 we cast off and went on our merry way back to Hawkesbury Junction.

Bye Mr Brindley

The return journey was just as tedious.  At least as we had already done our shopping there was no need to moor up and trek round to Tesco’s. 

The interesting bit of a mural dedicated to the weavers of Coventry.  I didn’t think much of the rest.

Along the way we passed more of the Rothen’s dredging equipment which must have recently been brought down from the Ashby and left here till needed next.

It was nearly five when we arrived at the junction, and the moorings were crowded so we ended up on the 14-day stretch.  By the time Jess had had a walk it was too late to get an inside table at the Greyhound and too cold to eat outside, so after a drink we had a bacon sandwich back on the boat.  Next time we’ll book a table and leave the dog behind.

Less than 6 miles