Friday 7th April - First King Fisher

A lovely morning so we made an early start motoring through Polesworth and passed Pooley Hall where we spotted our first King Fisher flashing past with the sun glinting of his lovely colours.

At Alvecote there were lots of old working boats moored looking very smart with their new paint work and blacking.
We stopped at Glascote Top lock to fill with water having passed through Amington with its weeping willow trees dangling across the canal.

As we had made good time and it was still only late morning we continued on through Fazeley Junction passing over the River Tame aqueduct and then the Wine Boat and stopped at Bone Hill Bridge for a catch up chat with Tracy and Kim off the Little Chimney Boat. Kim kindly welded a loose arm on the top hat whilst Tracy and June chatted away putting the world to rights. Their son has taken over the business now but Kim still helps out with the more specialised products they make.

We continued on through Hopwas which was unusually quiet with only a couple of boats moored where there are normally so many it is difficult to find a mooring. The army must have been using the firing range as the Red Flags were flying but we did not hear any shots as we motored through the wooded hillside.

We finally moored up for lunch at Whittington and decided to stay the night. In the village on the pub car park there was a Fish and Chip Van which operates on a Friday night from 5 pm, unfortunately we already had a dinner organised so could not take advantage of its services.

These Poly Tunnels on the approach to Whittington appeared to be growing Asparagus as we could just see the small stalks rising from the tilled soil.