Tuesday to Thursday

The mooring at Barrow-upon-Soar was a good one, with shops nearby, and services. Here, we were only three easy days away from Sawley Cut where we are to do our IWAHC course next Wednesday and Thursday. So we had time on our hands, and we stayed here throughout Tuesday, too.

Grace had some sewing to do, making Jess a dress, and we both had reading and various other things to do to relax with. Very frustrating was our extremely poor 3G connection via our suppliers, 3. Even though our router was telling us it was receiving a very strong signal, the bandwidth available to us was pitiful. 3's fault, I'm certain.

Wednesday morning, we left in dull weather, joining the River Soar again after Barrow Deep Lock, and winding along past Loughborough and mooring just below Bishop Meadow Lock.

The air was full of fluffy seeds floating from trees or plants in the area, and honestly looked like snow at times. The water developed quite a scum from them.

Continuing the next day, we really were feeling the difference between being on a canal and being on a river. The width and the depth of the water allow faster cruising, and the river has a certain majesty inherent in its size. But we were on a river prone to flooding, and passes through a number of flood locks, and past warning lights and water level indicators. Later, we were to come to emergency moorings for those who are between locks at a time of flooding.

The scenery was beautiful, greatly enhanced by some wonderful lighting created by the sun in one part of the sky and very heavy rain clouds opposite.

Finally we reached the end of the River Soar, at its intersection with the River Trent going east and west, and the Erewash Canal headed north.

Looking back to the Soar from the mouth of the Erewash

West up the Trent

Turn left to head off east

We made our way across the seemingly huge expanse of water, and into the entrance of the Erewash.

We had had quite a lot of fairly heavy rain over the past hour or so, with sunny spells in between. As we went up the Trent Lock just inside the Erewash cut, it started to rain again, with a very heavy downpour looking imminent, so we were lucky to find a good mooring straight away.

In our hurry to moor before the storm broke, I fell, sitting down very hard and fast onto the concrete path. It felt as though I had broken something to start with, but fortunately I had not fallen on the base of my spine, but on my right buttock, bruising the muscles there. Sitting down was very painful, lying down was better, standing was best!

The storm broke just as we went down into the cabin. Torrential rain, thunder and lightning. The rain came and went throughout the afternoon, but, come the evening, it had abated, and we went to the nearby pub restaurant for a meal. Sitting on the hard seat there wasn't too bad!

Trent Lock is a good mooring, quiet and secure, with three places to eat and drink, and all services. We were surprised to see a number of floating homes, here and further on up the canal the next day.

It's good to see that someone at CRT has a sense of humour!