Howard picked us up from Warwick last night and drove us to his home in Rugby, about half an hour away, for dinner with him and his husband Gord. Also present were three dogs, one other roommate, and an escaped tarantula.

Probably.

Nobody knows exactly where in the house the tarantula is hiding. It’s a sort of invisible conversation piece. Now I can’t stop thinking about vintage James Bond movies.

Gord will soon be starting a new job working with bigger and more dangerous animals, so the next time we visit there will probably be a panther under the sofa and a crocodile in the bathtub.

Apart from the threat of being suddenly Shelobbed, dinner was delightful.

We set off this morning down two locks, which we were able to share with another boat making it much easier, and moored up by a huge Tesco to load up on groceries. We took advantage of the proximity of the store to the canal to stock up, so we should be good for a while. Just a few miles further with no more locks and we moored up in Royal Leamington Spa.

Only three towns in the UK get to call themselves “Royal”, and Leamington (pron: LEM-ing-ton) was the first to get this honor, after a fleeting visit from Queen Victoria. It was a fashionable resort town from about 1800 to 1850, and many of the buildings in the downtown area date from that period. It took that long for the public to work out that drinking in bathing in the local salty mineral water was not actually that healthy.

One of the old bath houses has been preserved as a library, art gallery, and museum.

The art collection is a nice mix of older and more recent art that has been presented to or purchased by the town. Yes, that statue of a nude woman does only have one arm.

It could be a comment on the fact that differently abled people are still beautiful, or she might be in training to become Venus de Milo.

The museum bit of the collection focuses on Leamington’s history. It’s somewhat random. This is in the children’s museum section.

So are these.

These are in the grown up bit.

There are some remnants of bath house use, including this 20th century surround shower…

… and this 19th century Turkish bath.

Leamington also has a couple of commercial art galleries. The one I visited three years ago with the artwork by Bob Dylan and Ronnie Wood still has those artists, but has branched out into Billy Connolly as well. Meanwhile, up the road, a gallery that features real artists has just got a shipment of LS Lowry prints.

If you’re American you probably haven’t heard of him, but he was a mid 20th century English painter who mostly painted industrial and urban landscapes in Northern England. Just as Stubbs is all about the horses, Gainsborough is all about the plants and Turner is all about the weather, Lowry is all about the pollution. The typical Lowry painting will have at least half a dozen chimneys belching smoke. It’s cold and the people are miserable, ducking their heads into the bitter northern wind. No painter documented the true cost of the industrial revolution as well as Lowry.

These days Lowry prints are around £5,000 and originals are £100,000. I’m sure they are worth that as the owners can look at them and be glad they don’t live in Lancashire.