Blue skies ...

The carved/scarred landscape between Grendon and Polesworth looks set to become some sort of motocross or mountain bike track

Polesworth Abbey, a Scheduled Ancient Monument built in the 9th century as Benedictine nunnery.  Archaeologists have recently discovered ancient treasures here ...

... for images inside this historic building click here

Lots of interesting boats seen today ...

National Historic Ship Greyhound built at Yarwood in 1926 and after restoration in Gdansk, is looking good.

FMC steam boat Monarch built in 1908 has a very interesting past.  Like Canal Cuttings we also saw this lovely boat last in May this year at Gailey with butty Grimsby

Canoes too!

 Under the M42 bridge ...

... a good message

The ruins of Alvecote Benedictine Priory  founded in 1159, surrendered at dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1536 

 Working boats Australia, Kangaroo 

... and Tench built in 1936 are all moored at Alvecote Marina

We had a great cruise today with lovely blue skies and the occasional ray of sunshine too!

Just 2 locks today at Glascote

Crossing the aqueduct over the River Tame as we approach Fazeley Junction.

Currently moored on the visitor moorings at Fazeley where we saw fellow bloggers Beefur just to wave to and also found a very useful Tesco Express a few minutes walk from the junction and also a Cantonese Take-a-way - so now I know what we're eating tonight!

Not a good road today ...

... a good road would be that all the 11 Atherstone Locks would be set (ready) for us to enter ...

 ... leaving our mooring this morning at 20 past 8 ...

 ... and arriving at Atherstone Top Lock at 10 past 9 - it was 'against' us (empty) as was every other lock too ...

 ... the worst of them today was number 5 - chock-a-block with leaves, it took a good while to get any forward movement to exit the lock ...

... until we arrived at lock 10 and ahead we can see another boat coming up the very last lock!

25 to 12 and we're in the bottom lock - so by my reckoning it's taken us just under 2.5 hours to descend 11 locks - not too bad I suppose, just under 13 minutes per lock

A few pictures of the ...

... sky life ...

... on the journey.

Grendon Dock - this old working boat appears to have spent quite a bit of time under the water ...

 ... there are always interesting boats here.

 A lovely mooring just north of the dock ...

 ... surrounded by ...

 ... stunning countryside ...

It may have been a bad road (well very nearly) but it was a great journey.

Moving on ...

 Leaving Hawkesbury Junction on the Coventry Canal this morning

 I know, not a good photo, at all, but it's not often you see a Jay on the towpath

 A boat in the sky at Charity Dock - called Blue Hawk!!

The start of sunset at our mooring tonight at the BW Yard, Hartshill ..

... and the last of light on the boats.

The Greyhound

 A very pleasant but rather chilly cruise yesterday morning through the Warwickshire countryside ending up at ...

The Greyhound, Hawkesbury Junction for a delicious meal.  We reckon this is the best pub on the cut!

It's in!

It was just .2 of a degree above freezing on Monday morning as we left our mooring at All Oaks for the short cruise to Rose Narrowboats at Stretton-under-Fosse ...

 ... and the frost was still evident, but the sun had also put in a promising showing

Looking back down the unstable cutting where speed is restricted to just 2 miles per hour!

We managed to have the toilet tank pumped out but it was getting on for midday before the work began!  The fitting of the new composting toilet was going to be relatively easy as the only installation is the fan and hose which is connected from the toilet to the outside to draw air across the composter to aid decomposition.  For us this meant dismantling the now redundant pump-out pipe exit, fitting a mushroom vent over it on the roof and connecting the fan to the 12volt system.  Easy peasy!

The hard bit was to dismantle the rest of the old system - bearing in mind that it was installed nearly 5 years ago before any of the bulkheads (walls between 'rooms' on the boat) were built. Rather an awkward and 'messy' job to say the least!  

However George's hard work in not very nice conditions prevailed and 'job done!'  There's still a few 'cosmetic' jobs to be dealt with when we can but it's in and it's working just as it says on the tin!

We're not sure what to do with what we've removed and the under-bed tank.  We asked here at Rose Narrowboats but they're not interested as they're now in the process of standardising all their new hire boats.  We've also contacted Streethay Wharf and they may be interested in buying the system from us minus the cost of assisting George to take the tank out and the provision of new ballast to retrim Rock n Roll.  I do hope they will!  

However, if there's anyone out there who know someone who may be interested in a Sanimarin toilet (spotless) macerator system with all the electric gubbings and tank please ask them to contact us - the only proviso is that the buyer collects from where ever we are asap.

A delay in our plans

We left Rugby on Friday hoping to be able to instal the composting toilet on Saturday - but the best laid plans and all that ...

 ... caught in the headlight on one of the two aqueducts ...

... through Newbury Tunnel - I do love this one ...

 ... we even saw some blue sky too  ...

 ... looking back at All Oaks Wood where we pulled in to moor.

Unfortunately, due to pressure of work (turning round hire boats etc) Rose Narrowboats were unable to pump-out our tank on Saturday, they are also closed on Sunday - so Monday it is!  So watch this space.

Our thoughts tomorrow are with Mags who is off to hospital for tests and we hope that she is given the all clear after her 'episode' yesterday.  Good luck Mags.

Bridge repairs and vegetation

 We're on our way to Rugby and we've seen recent work on bridge 81 and then we see these notices ...

Bridge 80 - at long last it's getting the TLC that it deserves ...

this is what it looked like back in 2009 not long after it was apparently damaged by a vehicle

The bricks don't match very well, but hopefully they will fade in time ...

... and these protectors won't be required any longer 

CRT's contractors have been cutting the vegetation - half of the debris is on the towpath - thorned rose branches, brambles etc ready to catch the unaware walker, dogs paws and bike tyres ...

... and the other half is waiting for a propellor or to catch on the bow and slow the boaters down.

We've been at Brownsover Bridge (Tesco's) for a couple of days now taking the opportunity to ensure we've got all the tools etc needed to remove the existing toilet system and fit the composting toilet.  We'll move off today, get the tank emptied and then cross our legs until the work is done!