Gone for a Burton

Couldn't get a signal last night, so here is what should have been posted yesterday.

Gone through Burton, actually. We didn’t fancy tying up right next to the A38, so we’ve gone a bit further and stopped by The Bridge at Branston Bridge 34. According to Nicholson this might be the Branston which gave the pickle its name.

The weather, again, has been good: mostly sunny, with a stiffer breeze than yesterday. A small amount of rain had spotted the boat overnight, but we haven’t been precipitated upon since the first day of this cruise, a week ago.

We’ve done the last of the wide locks for a while (hooray! Does any solo narrowboater (i.e. not paired with another boat) prefer wide locks?) They’ve all been quite vicious fillers this morning – glad to get them out of the way.

At Swarkestone we stopped and walked down to the Trent to see the multi-arched bridge mentioned in Nicholson. It was good to stop and exercise, but the bridge wasn’t really all that spectacular. Perhaps we just had the wrong vantage point.

The canal has been much busier today, with even some queueing at locks.

For tea this evening we cooked the “meal for two for a fiver” from Sainsbury’s we got from Loughborough. It was very good, and well worth £2.50 each! (“Chicken breasts with sun-dried tomato and black olive”; mixed green vegetables; and chocolate puds.)

We’ve got well ahead of schedule, so, provided we can get a picture, we’ll get up late, watch the Grand Prix, and set off after that. (Update: we have good TV reception, so we stay here until Button's won another one!

Oh, I haven’t forgotten the Top Twenty chart, and I’ll try to take another snapshot later.