What to do on a hot day

 Nine o'clock sharp and Alex and I met to clean Herbie's bilges.  Well to be honest, such was Alex's enthusiasm for the job that it was just a matter of me watching him do it with his wet and dry vacuum.  The clean(ish) rainwater we dumped in the hedgerow and the oil and diesel from under the engine is now safely decanted into a can to be taken to the recycling place at home. I'm not sure I would eat my dinner off the bilge floor now, but it does look a lot more respectable and of course dry.  Alex stoutly refused any reward for his labours and returned to retouching the paintwork on the cartoon on the side of his boat, which he painted to have a good grumble at the shortcomings of CRT and the powers that be in general. 

Here's Alex drawing alongside us last evening. 

You can see the cartoon, but to get the detail you'll need to look at

 wewalktogether.uk/2020/06/14/villains-and-heroes It pulls no punches. Well worth a look.  BTW Alex also built his boat himself, from the bottom up.  Clever guy.

Now that we are coming back down the Ashby I have to think of something new to say with my magnetic lettering on the side of Herbie. Judging by the comments we get, this simple act seem to give a lot of people some pleasure.

It was just as well we started at nine because the day soon got uncomfortably hot as we tootled on down the Ashby, leaving Alex to his artwork.  It was good that there are so many bridges because it was cool and a little breezy under each one.  We decided to stop for lunch at Sutton Cheney wharf as we liked the look of it on the way up.  Also it has a facilities block  for the necessaries.  The little cafe there was busy, but we ordered slices of quiche and a bowl of chips to eat on the benches in the shade.  It was a bit of a long wait, but worth it as the food was really good.  The quiches really eggy (in a good way) and contained sun dried tomatoes and mozzarella, and the chips (twice fried) were skin on jobs cut large.  My mum would have complained " They might at least have peeled the spuds" she would have said.  They were in fact delicious.

Off we then trundled the relatively short distance back to Stoke Golding while we rest from the heat, and no doubt this evening take a refreshing stroll up the hill to contribute to the takings at the George and Dragon.

I fear the next couple of days are going to be uncomfortably hot.  Maybe we should start early or travel in the evening.  We''ll see.

Meanwhile here's a photo of the aqueduct at Shackerstone.  I don't think Pontcysyllte has a lot to fear status wise, but I like it nonetheless.

Speaking of Shackerstone here's another photo showing a pleasant memory of sitting across the road from the church yard there.