Sunday 26 May 2019

George Billington (Offenham) Lock to Bidford

Well we left about 9:30am,  fairly early for the boat opposite, we crept away as quietly as we could as their curtains and doors were firmly closed.

See all the lawns these marvellous volunteers have done?





This below is Harvington Lock, also know as Robert Aickman Lock. So named as a memorial to said Robert who strived to save the waterways of England.  I owe a lot to him as I can't tell you how much I love this boating.




Approaching Robert Aickman Lock.

Queen of the Meadow.

I remembered to roll the carpet back today.


Didn't know who he was?  Read this then.

Charmingly built to rest and ponder their achievements.


Another one of those busy non stop phone call days.  

He noticed little as I wound WaL through meadows and trees with such beautiful surroundings at a very low speed, it was paid back by the kingfishers.





Can you see it?  This was one of four or five we saw this morning.

Yellow lilypads flowers just beginning to open.

Now this a great pity its still here I'm sure polluting the river.

David is concerned about all the Rape now growing wild.


Look carefully to see another Kingfisher in flight.  No....?



Never got one in flight before, not great but it pleased me.

A cracker.




Around the corner and into Bidford-on-Avon.  David had inadvertedly put an "E" on the end of the name in the car's sat nav this morning and nearly ended up miles away.

We were quite early but even so a wide beam had arrived before us and had not gone to the end (because there was a slight bend on the staging I think) and some inconsiderate cruiser had left that other boat right bang in the middle too, David said that we would move him along, but we got in behind it.  We were on a water point, but here it's a bit different, these are very limited moorings with water on them, anyway we moored up and went inside to have a coffee.  
Just as we started drinking coffee and a hire boat that had been on the other side of the river left.  We shot out and whizzed WaL over onto the slightly moor appealing moorings which although are alongside a pub, they are in the sun.  Other folk with dogs might well prefer where we had been as it had a lovely park alongside it.

So this was taken the following morning after the wide beam had left, see the wee cruiser?  It was chained up, not at all annoying.  

We had been where that NB is under the tree and he had another NB breasted alongside him earlier too.  Many visitors and not enough moorings at popular places.




It is confusing but the pub by the bridge has a Private Mooring sign, it seems this pub (Two pubs right next door to each other and this one has a visitor mooring (WITH TWO WATER TAPS).  The other boat arrived in the afternoon and squashed himself on.  We were prepared to have someone breast up but no one else came.

Single file over Bidford Bridge

Bidford Bridge is another brilliant testament to the workmen who slaved to build it, "Early in the C15th" it has been repaired many times including when some idiot bashed it bandy in 2015  HERE, oh dear he was a farmer.


Supper was Chicken salad with the chickpea and avocado salad which is emptying my store cupboard of out of date beans.  One day this week David wanted English mustard,
I retrieved a jar but I pointed out was a darker colour than normal.  I checked the date and asked if he was feeling brave....  It was 2013.  
He did use it but on hunting for the chickpeas I found another, dated 2017 so that's all fine.











5 comments:

  1. Will the blogging system allow you to go back and correct the two mis-spellings of Aickman's name? Once in the text, once in a photo caption.
    The smile comes because there are two photos with it spelt correctly :-)
    Regards.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Davidss,
    Thank you for that, I always welcome corrections especially when they are as shameful as this one.
    Spellcheck is not always a friend to me, plus I am a poor typist with fat fingers!!!

    Cheers,

    Lisa

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well done on the kingfisher photo!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The car is still there but further into the river now an only just visible, a photo on todays blog

    ReplyDelete