We spent most of the day trundling up a flight of eleven locks in Atherstone. For the first few we were behind a boat called

Which seems like a good time to present some other narrowboat names inspired by Tolkien.





I think we also passed Strider and a Gandalf, but I didn’t have the camera handy. Then there’s this.

So the current score is JRRT 8, GRRM 1. Not that there aren’t a lot of GRRM fans out there, it’s just that narrowboats stay around a long time, and JRRT had been popular longer. This boat we passed today dates back to 1898.

Narrowboat names I haven’t seen yet

• Marie Celeste
• Titanic
• Boaty McBoatface

But it’s probably only a matter of time.

I nearly rammed another boat while admiring this field of wildflowers, mostly poppies.
There’s probably a Wizard of Oz joke there somewhere, but I can’t find it.

Most of the locks we went up today had side ponds. This was part of a water economy scheme. Going down you could empty a lock into a side pool, half filling it, and then use half that water the next time the lock had to be filled. It did not save much water and it made lock operations much slower, so the use of side pools has now been abandoned. However, if they are still full of water they can provide an interesting wildlife habitat.

Building bridges for waterfowl seems like putting wheels on horses. The little buggers can swim, after all. Worse than that is writing a label on it, because, I hate to say this, but over 99% of all moorhens are illiterate, and as for ducks, they don’t want anyone to know they can read, so they’re just going to ignore the signs anyway.

We were wondering if these were alpacas or llamas…

When we passed this.

Either alpacas can own narrowboats or their owners misplace apostrophes.

We moored up for the night near the village of Hartshill, just across the canal from a tea room where they have rhubarb soda…

and a fork shaped like a battle swan.

The tea room is in an old canal maintenance yard, and the owner full of information about the local history. Not only was Richard III battered to death not far from here, but Boudicca (Boadicea) poisoned herself after losing a massive battle against the Romans. The guide book says Boudicca’s burial place has never been found. Richard III’s skeleton was found recently in a car park in Leicester, so I guess there is still hope that her remains will turn up some time in a fish and chip shop in Coventry.

Fans of Alex Kingston (River Song) may wish to know that she played Boudicca in a 2003 made for TV movie. However, it gets terrible reviews so I haven’t dared watch it. Why not just watch Husbands of River Song again instead?

This is the most fun bit of the canal maintenance yard.