Here's Hawkesbury Junction as you approach it from the east - we are going straight on to Coventry but you normally have to turn the boat 180 degrees in a very small space to get around this one.
Just so you know where you're going.
This is the first bridge as you go down to Coventry. They really have made an effort in lots of ways to make this arm appealing, but until they sort out the horrible mess of litter that lines the whole 5 1/2 miles they are not really doing that well.
The M6 outside Coventry - not driven on this one as far as we can remember - you can hear it for miles though.
Coventry Arena or the Ricoh stadium, depending on which maps / signs you read! Bizarrely there are moorings across from here, I can't imagine many fans bringing their boats to matches and the bridge to cross the canal to get to it is a bit of a trek. There is also a Tesco near the stadium so maybe the moorings are for that, far more useful in my opinion.
This is a really interesting piece of industrial history and a beautiful piece of architecture as well in my opinion. This is Cash's Hundred. The weavers, Cash's (remember the school name labels?) built these for their weavers and there is accommodation on the first 2 floors but the top floor had the looms that were operated by a drive shaft that ran the length of the building, So no excuse for being late for work, you just had to go upstairs! The intention was to build 100 of these (hence the name) but only 48 were built. They are now just terraced houses, but I haven't a clue what they did about the top floor, bricked them up to separate them presumably.
Here's the view of the basin from the boat, where we moored overnight. It's literally 5 minutes from the city centre so very handy.
This brings us to the end of the 15th!
Yesterday we wandered around Coventry for the morning, taking in a pub lunch on the way!
We both found the experience of walking around both cathedrals very moving - here was just one of the touching memorials.
You can barely move in Coventry without being aware of the juxtaposition of old and new. Here the canopy of the new cathedral shelters the steps from the old one. Apparently all major services start with a procession from the old to the new, 'it's never forgotten' was how our guide put it to us.
Somehow the old bell tower survived the bombing, one can't help but ask how on earth it managed it. There are also small remains of original glass in the very small windows. Amazing.
This is the baptismal window in the new cathedral - absolutely ablaze with light. The architect was brilliant at using angles and coloured glass etc to catch and reflect light, and we didn't even go on a particularly sunny day.
You can't come to Coventry without seeing Lady Godiva! John spent a lot of time reminiscing about visiting the city in the late '80's and said you could drive around the statue in those days, now it's the centre of a pedestrian precinct. He also raved on about a dancehall he used to go to - it's now the library.....
This is the pub where we had lunch yesterday - the best venison sausage baguette I've ever had! The pub is reputed to be the oldest in Coventry and is in Spon Street that still has many of the medieval buildings in it, as it escaped the bombing. The pub still has the old brewing room complete with brick vat where they used to brew their own beer. It's all small rooms and up and down floors and settles and open fires. Lovely place, would recommend it to anyone.
This rather splendid little church is where the expression "being sent to Coventry" came from. Apparently during the civil war, Coventry was a Parliamentarian town and the Royalists who were captured in the area were imprisoned in this church. The local people gave them a cold welcome and refused to have anything to do with them, hence the expression!
After our tour of the city we got back to the boat and decided to move back to Hawkesbury. The wind was pretty vicious and we had problems turning the boat and also getting around 2 of the bends as we came out of bridges on the way back. However my trusty captain got us there without mishap and we managed to nab the last mooring before the junction. Surprisingly we were still unable to get a TV signal - there was none in the basin either, but I did get enough signal to be able to watch Iplayer to catch up on what we'd missed!
After a late start this morning we got through the junction with comparative ease, considering the wind that continues to blow - I got so fed up with it that I've cut my hair back into a fringe. It makes a lot of difference believe me.
We had one incident during the day. Our Pearsons guide (bible for the canal) blew overboard in the wind and we had to do some quick reversing and use of boathook to get it back. It's currently drying out in the warmth of the pram cover. This incident was made more interesting when we both stood back up, with the boat across the canal to see a boat coming through the bridge in front of us at a rate of knots and obviously not interested in taking prisoners! John managed to get us out of the way in time, but I'm not sure why anyone would want to go that speed around a corner under a bridge!
We didn't cruise for long today as we are hanging around so we don't arrive at the venue for Saturday too soon. It means a couple of days of quiet time - I've used some of that time today to start trimming Paddy! He's a bit tatty at the moment but I'm sure it will even up....
In case anyone's interested we're at Ansty, a few miles SE of Hawkesbury on our way to Rugby.
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