Today we left the rural idylls of the Ashby Canal and returned to the Coventry Canal, taking a big loop through the outskirts of Nuneaton. The canal side back yards were variously besplattered with roses… … resplendent with fake geese… … or littered with skeletons. The towpath graffiti gets a B-minus at best. We passed a narrowboat decorated with battle swans made out of old tires. Past Nuneaton, the agriculture is pretty varied. There are designer cows… … horses, sheep,…
OK, I can cross that off the bucket list. I’ve now seen an ancient Greek depiction of juggling. This one is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It’s from Athens in about 450 BCE. There are only a handful of Greek juggling images I know of. Images of athletics or anal sex are far more common. It is always women juggling, and they are usually seated, or in one case bending over awkwardly. Did Greek homes have low ceilings that…
Tortoise sex proceeds at about the same speed as a narrowboat. I have a childhood memory of visiting Twycross Zoo, soon probably not that long after it opened in 1963. The chimps there were famous for appearing dressed as members of the working class in TV commercials for PG Tips tea. I remember seeing them performing at a tea party, and afterwards they came around and shook hands with the watching kids. Yep, I got to shake a chimpanzee’s hand….
We are moored up tonight between the fields where the Battle of Bosworth actually took place, and Crown Hill, where Richard III’s crown was found on a thorn bush and place on Henry VII’s head. We know it’s the right place, because it’s on all the street signs. The village on the hill is called Stoke Golding, and is a bustling place with three pubs, a school, two hairdressers, and a convenience store. The local church dates back to the…
Last night we reached the last turning point on the Ashby and turned around. The canal used to go further, but subsidence due to coal mining meant that the last third of the canal had to be abandoned. However, the local canal enthusiasts are a determined bunch and the last winding hole had a permanent rummage sale to help raise the hundreds of millions of pounds that will be required to reopen the missing bits. They have some other sources…
It sounds like something from The Gashlycrumb Tinies, doesn’t it, right before “N is for Neo who Thought he was God”. But Sir Marmaduke Constable was a real person who survived the battles of Bosworth and Flodden, only to die when he swallowed a frog in a glass of water. That is one of the best things in the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre. There’s not much that remains of the Battle of Bosworth. In fact there is so little left…
People decorate the tops of their boats in different ways. Often you will see planters full or herbs or flowers, rubber ducks, garden gnomes, or buddhas. Once we shared locks with a boat that had a lawn on top. It needed mowing and watering. Then there’s this. This isn’t even the most surprising boat topping I’ve seen this trip. We went past a boat with an open topped crate containing two Harris Hawks. Yep, there’s a falconer living on a…
Yesterday we hiked into Hinckley. It was more than a mile to reach the town center, excuse me, town centre. Andrew wrote earlier about the heritage museum but I want to share thoughts about markets. Hinckley is not a official market town. Having been to several towns with official market status, it would be a bit hard to see the distinction nowadays. But historically, not every town could randomly decide to hold markets. Generally markets were established near fortified areas…
Hinkley is stocking country. Oh, these days they make Triumph motorcycles, but historically the main industry of the town was knitted legwear. Woven fabrics are great for suits, dresses, ribbons, sheets and curtains, but for something that hugs the figure and can deal with a bended knee or disguise cellulite in the thighs you need a knitted fabric, which will stretch and give. As Heinlein said, “If you think rocket science is difficult, you should consider the topology of a…
We visited downtown Bedworth again this morning to check if it really was as bad as we had thought. It actually improves on a second visit. By far the best building in town is the set of almshouses built in the 1840s to house the poor. They were built by a charity founded by an 18th century parson and squire called Nicholas Chamberlaine. He left most of his estate to the charity. This included some land which turned out to…