Atherstone explored

No Boots, no Currys, no Next, no WHS, no card shops, no phone shops, how lovely. Atherstone's aptly named Long Street has dozens of little independent stores selling the essentials of life.

We spent a couple of hours browsing Long Street yesterday and came away with a new carpet runner for the galley, a real chamois leather for washing the boat, a new cabin hook for the back door and numerous other things we had been looking for. Sure, there are the usual glut of charity shops, but we like browsing in them. For £2 we bought a dvd of Apollo13 which we enjoyed watching last night. Perhaps the best shop, for me at any rate, was the rather wonderful Atherstone Toolbox, one of a number of hardware stores in the street. This one was the biz. Packed to the gunnels with all manner of tools, brassware, nuts and bolts and the like.

A big Co-op supermarket handy for the canal too. What's not to like?

Normally we pass down the locks at the pleasant little town, but this time we stayed the whole day as we are ahead of schedule and the forecast was for heavy showers. There's a good stretch of mooring below the fifth lock down if you don't mind the noise of the frequent trains nearby.

This morning the sun is shining and we're off again down the rest of the locks and then on towards Fazeley where Kath will abandon me for five days to go home on baby sitting duties.