New bin compound at Hawkesbury Junction!

Friday 6^th June; Bridge 13 to Coventry basin

The first thing that happened was the gas bottle ran out before the kettle had boiled for our second cup of tea at breakfast, so clearly Dave had to change the bottle before we could think about moving off.  Thank goodness it was dry today!  All was quiet as we arrived at Marston Junction and turned onto the Coventry canal.

Bye Ashby

Charity Dock seems to have fewer boats moored now, and the gardens just look tired, even though some of the mannequins had got new costumes.

Stig, you need to put your overalls in the wash

As we came through Bulkington Bridge, this amazing creature landed on Dave’s arm.  It was 5 or 6 millimetres long, big for a ladybird.  I’m fairly sure of the identification but put it onto I-record where someone will probably confirm it.  They are not uncommon, but I’ve never seen one before.  They live in woodland, spend the summers feeding on mildew up in the canopy, and hibernate in the leaf litter over winter.  What a lovely creature.

Halyzia sedecimguttata, the Orange ladybird (probably)

We pulled in at the first water point before Hawkesbury Junction, and while Dave looked after the water situation I took some rubbish down to the facilities block to see if the situation had improved since we were last here, when there was no recycling, just a skip behind a locked door in the building.  Now there is a sparkling new compound with proper recycling and food waste bins.  Hurray!  All I had to do was go back to the boat and collect ours, not forgetting our litter-picker with which to lift a Tesco bag of ordinary rubbish out of the food waste bin and put it in the right one.  Why do people do that sort of thing?  We stopped beyond the decorated footbridge for lunch.

It is remarkably difficult to take a picture of this footbridge when there is any sun.  This is a detail from the Coventry side.

When we started again, I walked with Jess for a mile or so.  This bench was an example of the sculpture trail from the basin. 

We had heard that the stretch to Coventry was much improved, and it was – the last time we were here it was scruffy and rubbish-strewn, and you were advised not to moor outside the basin.  We saw a coot on her nest, which was more or less entirely made from pieces of litter.  The first time we were here was probably with the children in about 1990, when we had a hire boat from a company based along the stretch to Coventry – it had high fences and barbed wire around the boatyard, and we were given strict instructions not to stop or get off the boat ANYWHERE until we were past the junction.  All I really remember is a lot of pipes crossing the canal, and complicated looking industries either side, possibly chemical in nature.  Not now – wild flowers on some stretches of the towpath and almost no litter.

Even a family of swans

It was a very long 2 hours’ cruise to the basin.  There are few mooring spots, lots of bland new housing and concrete edges all the way. 

Cash’s One Hundred weavers’ houses were a point of interest.  I still use our old Cash's name labels occasionally if something needs naming.

We winded in the basin and reversed back into one of the arms, mooring on the side with the cafés.  A couple of boats were already here for the floating market at the weekend - there was a 'reserved' label on our front mooring ring, but it isn't in force yet.  We didn’t do much – there was a bit of rain, then Dave took Jess for a walk up the towpath and I started catching up with the blog.  The building we moored next to seems to be a community space – there was band practice at 6.  The instrumentalists seemed to be quite good, and though we didn’t recognise most of the songs, indie/pop rock I would guess, it wasn’t unpleasant in the background.  But the singer of ‘Teenage Dirtbag’, which I rather like, was murdering it.  We thought they were there for the evening, but then their dads turned up to collect them – they were only about 14!  Good for them.  It was quiet after that, apart from the occasional siren on the road.  We plan to stay for a couple of nights. 

12½ miles