Whatever happened to July.
As the reports kept flooding in with dire warnings about water shortages, hosepipe bans and the summer of ’76, we cruised on with uncertainty. Our plan had been to cruise down the Coventry canal towards Rugby, probably taking in detours onto the Ashby and into Coventry, before deciding whether to go down the Grand Union aiming to overwinter around Leighton Buzzard, or whether to head up the Soar through Leicester and back onto the T&M for the winter months. We’d always planned for a meandering slow summer but this is boat life, we hadn’t anticipated quite such a slow stroll.
At the beginning of July, we left the Trent and Mersey Canal and turned onto the Coventry canal. We’d been invited to the Friday social at the Lichfield Cruising club, so that’s where we made our first stop.
Sue made us very welcome, but guess what, it rained so the BBQ was eaten inside. We were keen to explore Lichfield, but its about 2.5 miles walk in from the club at Huddlesford Junction. With no nearby bus route, we cruised on towards Whittington and it’s bus stop, but we we found it was too shallow to get in close to the bank. Ok we didnt try very hard not realising this could become the norm. On another mile and we found ourselves a beautiful mooring just beyond the village, with some nice trees to shade us from the next heatwave.
At this point, I was quite happy not cruising because during July there are 2 major sporting events that will have me breaking my “no daytime tv” rule. Wimbledon and the TdF. No not Tour de France, but the Tour de Fleece, an online spinning extravaganza, where yarnies like me get their spinning wheels out and aim to complete various challenges of spinning skills, whilst spinning every day during the official TdF. It’s all a bit of fun on social media, but there’s nothing I like better than getting my wheel out onto the towpath and spinning in the fresh air. Or better still getting my little electric wheel out to spin whilst we are cruising
We stayed put for a few days, watching the entertainment – competative boating- who was going to win the race to get through the bridge, and who was going to come off worst…. us…. the green boat reversed into us when he realised 3 boats dont fit.
Unfortunately it was still quite a walk to the bus stop from Hadmore farm bridge, which meant we still hadn’t been able to get into Lichfield easily. But the little Co-op in Willington kept our fridge full until we moved onto Hopwas.
A perfect mooring for towpath spinning, it has to be flat and wide enough to allow the walkers and their inquisitive dogs to pass by, or stand and chat, and with some shade. Of course spinning outside means I don’t get to watch the cycling on TV at the same time, but if I’m honest I’m not really a cycling addict. The downside of Hopwas is that it doesn’t have a village shop, but it does have a good bus service into both Lichfield and Tamworth that we took advantage of.
By now, mid July, the email alerts from CRT really were starting to pour in about closed locks and restrictions, including the Atherstone flight which was our planned route. Eric had a lot of work on(- why does contract work always happen in the summer instead of the winter when there’s nothing better to do) and I had my spinning, so we decided that even though we were still allowed to cruise, the writing was on the wall, worse was to come, so we would do our bit to help conserve our valuable water resource and not do any more locks until the situation improved. We’d heard good things about the mooring on the Birmingham and Fazeley canal near the Kingsbury water park, so that’s where we headed next. What a view.
I’m not sure if I’ve really recovered yet. But I thought you’d like to share a little of my madness. Britspin was organised by a group of enthusiasts who wanted to have some fun and raise money for the air ambulance service. I got involved when Martina from NB Burnt Oak asked if I could be in her team, and coming from Bedfordshire we would be known, along with 8 others as “team spinning in Beds.” We had both hoped to travel to Beds to spin together but as circumstances worked against us social media came to our rescue and we all kept in touch throughout the 4 day event. As the event kicked off at midnight we thought we’d go to bed well prepared.
Martina took her wheel to bed and I out teddy in charge of my drop spindle 
And I woke up at 6 to get a few metres spun on my drop spindle, (no wonder Eric chose to stay on board Firecrest) 
But I’d got a box full of fluff and my wheel and more spindles were ready and waiting for me once daylight arrived. To keep us busy during the 4 days we were challenged to make our own drop spindle able to spin a minimum of 5 m 
I dutifully improvised a rose from the garden and one of Heather’s hand made glass beads 
I was quite impressed with the result, so were the judges, I got a joint third place badge for my efforts. 
I was a lot more productive using my wheel and proper drop spindles though and over the 4 days I managed to spin approx 800m of finished yarn. As each skein is made up of 2 yarns plied together that actually means I spun about 2363m in total, that’s about a mile and a half. My personal challenge was to pass the mile mark so I’m happy. 
I might have managed a bit more but Tim and Veve decided to visit, so it was a full house. They had visited a pumpkin patch and brought me a tiny pumpkin (or more officially a gourd) which was just crying out to feel the fibre fun,
and I managed another 5m. I reckon I’d be ok if I got stranded on a desert island.
I was a little bereft on Monday morning so I got the crochet hook out and made a pumpkin to add to the collection Tim and Veve gave us.