Coventry Beer Festival

Can you believe it. It was the Ashby Canal and you don't expect crime around there. We have been drilled. That is, the fuel tank on our car was drilled with an electric drill, the fuel stolen and the remainder left to flow all over the road. "Happens quite often." says the AA man as he pushed some epoxy into the hole.. Not to us it doesn't. There are scronks everywhere and with the current price of fuel, it will be more prevalent in the future. No wonder all the livaboards round there drive small, cheap cars. Lets be careful out there.

I did have a diatribe about Paul Davies' position (well somebody's got to support minority groups and lost causes) but have decided that life's just too short to place it on here. I'm possibly one of the very few who support his right to be a bridge hopper. It was one of the comments on nb No Problems blog that convinced me not to bother. There was one person who claimed to be struggling with his finances but was having a brand new boat built but who was currently a hirer and that constant moorers made his blood boil. I would advise him to not have that boat built if boating is that stressful and he doesn't have any money. We really need less boiling blood on the canals and more of the easy going, relaxed sort of boater. Maybe boaters who didn't interfere with other people's lives and just concentrated on their own. Maybe a little rationality might be nice. Just my tuppence worth.

Here we were at Coventry Basin for the Coventry Beer Festival (Surprise, surprise). Our daughter Terri also stayed over and attended the festival although she was a tad overdressed for a beer drinking event. I think she even enjoyed it. I most certainly did, as did Lisa. The festival itself was what a beer festival should be. Small enough to be friendly but with a large enough selection of beers so you can sample many different types.

The canal on the way to the basin had a certain amount of debris in it but no worse than any other urban canal despite others telling me that it was full of mattresses. Indeed it was a very pleasant journey and the basin itself is lovely and in the centre of the city. I think that we shall make this one a date for the future.

First bend, that's not a good start

And again

Some houses!

Old and new

This ones not in my fifteen year old Nicholson

The bridge into the basin, very low and no towpath. For security apparently

Masses of room to spare

All very pleasant when you're here

Even James Brindley thinks so.

Not many others here though. Do they know something we don't.

We've decied to pop down to Oxford during the two weeks of the Easter holidays. We were planning the Warwickshire Ring but thought we need to visit pastures new.