End of the Summer Cruise

Yes, today we ended the Summer cruise in grey wet August skies. The rain, so light that it hung in the air, persisted all morning but we managed our little saunter from the overnight mooring at Minworth Top Lock to a rendezvous at The Kingsley. Once a Beefeater Tavern and latterly styled Kingley Canalside, this pub appears to be no more. There certainly was no life there today at 12noon! There is a notice on the window about an application to the licensing authority to extend opening hours to 0800am to 0300am. Any opening hours would have been welcome on a cold wet August Thursday! Our lunch with friends here was cancelled and we loaded our things into their car, bid them bon voyage and drove away to find some dinner elsewhere. The Toby Carvery in Knowle was en route as we followed the way we had come: Lapworth, Hatton, Warwick/Leamington, and thence to Banbury.

We could have covered in 45 minutes what ot had taken us over a fortnight. But on the way back I did not see a kingfisher, its irredescent blue back glowing in the morning sunlight, alighting on a swaying branch and them swooping low, almost touching the water, as it considered discretion a better option and flew to the safety of an oak tree across a waving hay meadow. No, the Stratford Canal provided something special to remember.