Anyway yesterday we continued up the Ashby and found it a bit shallow in places! We went past all the Bosworth Field stops, we tried to stop at what was shown as moorings in our book but it's 11 years old (note to self, buy new Pearson's before setting out in future) and what I presume were the moorings have overgrown, they were supposed to be next to Richards Field, the site where it is presumed that Richard of York died but there were no signs anywhere.
This is where you can moor and walk across the fields to the Bosworth Field information centre, but we thought we'd probably stop on the way back, this was before discovering the moorings by Richards Field were no longer there.
I seem to be in a bit of a senior moment phase, because I've forgotten to mention what happened the previous night when we went for our meal.
As usual, I'm always interested in people around me (John says I'm nosey, but I'm just a people watcher!) and got chatting to the table of 4 next to us. One of the ladies said she thought she knew me and I told her my name and she said she definitely knew the name so we spent some time trying to work out the connection. She lived about 10 miles from where we used to and our children went to the same secondary school, we knew a few people around and about in common and finally I said that I'd worked at Yeovil College. That was it! We'd both worked in the same department, me in child care and Jo in health and social care and we'd been in and out of the staffroom. What a coincidence. They were up here visiting her husbands niece and husband and whatever the odds were that we'd be eating in the same pub, at adjoining tables in Leicestershire that night must be astronomical. Small old world isn't it?
This is the pub in question, no Lime Kilns to be seen anywhere and it used to be called the Plough apparently, no idea why it changed it's name.
We moored out in open country, just before Bridge 38 and these were our neighbours for the night. During the afternoon after we'd moored, a couple came past and we started chatting, they were boaters as well and they told us that there was a height restriction on the tunnel at the end of the canal. Something we didn't know about. So John checked and sure enough it's 75" max and we are nearer 80" so we will only be able to go up to the winding hole a couple of miles before the tunnel and won't make it to the end.
The connection is quite slow tonight so I'm not going to be able to put as many pictures on as I'd like.
The weather forecast last night wasn't good and said it would improve from about 10.30am so we weren't in a hurry to get away today and the skies were very heavy when we set off. We kept saying that at the first sign of rain we'd pull in since moorings are plentiful along here. There was a brief flurry of about 6 drops and that was it, the day continued overcast with very heavy cloud cover and strong winds but stayed dry.
We went and turned and came back to more or less opposite where the supposed moorings were and went off for a walk, as the map showed a pottery about a mile away. The pottery was long gone but there was a glass blowing studio instead. It was shut.
Anyway we walked on and came to the Battlefield. The horrible weather of earlier broke and we had beautiful sunshine, although all around us in the distance we could see clouds and showers of rain.
While we were there we read all the blurb and looked at the maps and found that we'd actually walked past Richards Field on the way so were determined to spot it on the way back. I'd been to Bosworth when Robert was a baby in 1981 and my overriding memory of the place was carrying him in a sling when he filled a nappy with the most disgusting bright yellow smelly curd-like substance that only a 6 week old, breast fed baby can do. He was wearing a disposable nappy and they weren't that sophisticated at that time and he was covered from his neck to his toes, the sling was bright yellow as was my tee-shirt. Because of this I wasn't surprised to not recognise any of the stuff there, Then on the walk back I realised that they discovered in 1985 that they had the wrong site, so where I went wasn't the same place at all.
On the way back we found Richards Field.....
....and this is it. Not exactly inspiring, plus I realised that the overgrown moorings on the off side that we'd seen were in fact next to this but since there was no notice-board or plaque it wasn't obvious what it was.
Tomorrow I want to stop at a rather nice farm shop that we spotted on the way up here and there's also a pub that John has read good things about so we'll probably do them and the next day get back onto the Coventry and head for home, still no real hurry though,
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