Shopping in Atherstone and a short cruis

Coventry Canal near Hartshill

Main job for today was a visit to our favourite Atherstone shop - 19Gales farm shop - for one of their delicious steak pies. This will provide a good dinner in a couple of days time. That was the plan...

We awoke to a very cold morning. The temperature in the saloon was about 12 degC. The stove was just alight but not contributing any heat. I was able to resurrect it by the standard routine of opening up the air vent and, the key technique, opening the front and pushing a kindling stick into the reddest part of the fire. Then close the front, wait an hour and we have a passable fire.

Again our battery voltage was low at 12.1 volt. So after breakfast I decided to investigate further. By removing the earth cable from each of our 4 domestic batteries I was able to check each one individually, having thought one possible reason was a failure of one of the batteries. But no, they were all fine and the voltage on my voltmeter (rather more accurate than the one on the boat control panel) indicated that the batteries were about half charged - which is reasonable. So the current theory is that the boat voltmeter is affected by the cold temperatures. Perhaps all is really OK.

Then the rest of the morning was spent shopping for the pie and a few extra provisions, coming back to the boat for a read until lunch time. Well I came back to the boat, Denise continued shopping!

The weather was good all day so we set off after lunch for a short 2 mile cruise to Hartshill where there is an impressive BW yard with georgian buildings topped by a small clock tower. The section of canal from Atherstone to Nuneaton is very attractive being cut into the hillside overlooking the wide Anker Valley as it rises to the east, with open rough pasture and trees on either side of the waterway.

We have now moored at Hartshill for the night and are looking for to our dinner of chicken and haricot bean stew, reheated from Saturday.