Loving, locks and football (note the vital comma!!)

We awoke on Thursday to a slightly overcast but still warm day, and after breakfast moved a short way to top up our water tank - we're not getting caught with a drought on board again!

There's always something going on along the towpath - a woman signwriting a boat

Stunning old traditional narrowboat, lovingly restored - the owner's wife says he goes through more Brasso than diesel

One of the floating homes moored permanently opposite our mooring

Entering Trent Lock, sharing with another boat, taking us back onto The River Trent

Quaint little tea rooms beside the lock

We crossed the Soar/Trent/Erewash junction late morning, and ambled along the charming River Soar ogling at some cool riverside houses along the way - the drawback would be the view from the rear of the house of Ratcliffe Power Station!

Kayakers coming down the River Soar as we passed going up

A touch of 'The Wind in the Willows'

 

Oh dear, a dismal scene!

Ratcliffe Lock, a sharp right hand turn

There were only three locks to negotiate - one of them, Kegworth Deep Lock, certainly lived up to its name!  Barry went ahead to open the gates, and while he was gone an amazing photo opportunity presented itself to me so I had to take it with my little Canon Ixus - an iridescent blue and a fluorescent green dragonfly attached themselves to the rear porthole and proceeded to copulate before my eyes!  I believe the female grasps the male by the head until she can find a suitable spot - then he brings his tail up and 'does the business'.  Spectacular colours, it's so difficult normally to get a shot of these beautiful creatures, what a joy!

Wow! How incredible to be honoured with this erotic display of dragonfly loving

After my photographic delight it was into the bowels of the lock which reminded me of the huge caverns of the River Trent that we passed through last year.  It's pretty nerve wracking being in these 'tombs' alone, on what appears to be a teeny narrowboat in comparison - hanging onto the ropes with gritted teeth and hoping that the other end that's tied up but unattended doesn't come loose and send you swishing around like a washing machine - there were even what appeared to be soap suds in the swirling water!  I encountered a couple of tricky moments when the stern rope couldn't quite manage to easily glide up the pole, and the boat rocked precariously, but we eventually we ascended safely - phew!

Plenty of room in here; and an old, disused lock runs parallel to the Deep Lock

Does my boat look little in this?

 

 

Hanging on tightly whilst smiling through gritted teeth!

 

 

 

We spotted a riverside pub just before 1500hrs kick-off, and pulled up hoping they may be showing the New Zealand match, but unfortunately they weren't - so on we trekked ...

The Otter at Kegworth, looked very pleasant but far too respectable to be showing football!

The imposing Whatton House overlooks the Soar - mostly shrouded by trees, you can visit the gardens and can hire the venue for weddings

 

 

 

 

Good job there's an arrow pointing in the other direction!

 

 

 

 

 

We continued on and had managed six miles of travelling before finding a perfect pub in a small village called Zouch, just north of Loughborough, that was showing the football - well the lovely man was sitting watching Wimbledon and we asked if it would be possible to turn the TV over to watch the match.  Bless him, he very kindly said it wasn't a problem and switched channels - we didn't find out until later that he'd actually been watching the mammoth, record breaking, three day match which was eventually won 70 games to 68 after over 12 hours!  There was a very congenial atmosphere in the canalside pub 'The Rose and Crown', of course at that time of day it was fairly quiet but everyone who worked there or came in chatted to us amiably. 

Suffice it to say, the All Whites are out of the World Cup after only managing a nil/nil draw against Paraguay who go through with Slovenia - well who'd have thought?  Even Italy have been knocked out and they are the current holders of the Cup!  There was a banner in the crowd which read "The All Whites - As many World Cup Finals as Spain" - I suspect that's nothing to be proud of, but when you've nothing to lose you may as well boast about something!  The Kiwi goalkeeper was amazing, Paraguay should probably have won three nil realistically, they were definitely the better team!  Ah well, we'll just have to lend our support to England now and stay away from the match on Sunday so they win again!

Houses backing straight onto the river               The Rose and Crown pub - highly recommended

Two kiwis entranced by the game, and the lovely bloke who unselfishly turned the TV over for us - you can tell which pubs are supporting the World Cup by the English flags flying or adorning furniture/people

The rear of The Rose and Crown

By the time we returned to Northern Pride it was after 1800hrs so we decided to stay the night.  Barry had a trip on the bike to Normanton-upon-Soar, a 12th century village nestling between Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, just a short distance away, but not accessible from the water.

An assortment of shapes and sizes of boats on the river

The 12th century parish church of St James surrounded by gravestones

  

Church Steeple - looks like the stairway to heaven

Normonton-upon-Soar - a picture postcard (affluent) village

 

 

The flood protection weir on the river bypass - a very elaborate looking system, though I guess it's needed when you see how close the houses are to the river

 

 

 

 

We'll motor on to Loughborough on Friday and hope to make it as far as Leicester on Saturday - thanks for the advice Adam - I have to admit that I'd heard some dreadful tales of thugs stoning boats in the locks in Leicester when we were here last year, and haven't been terribly keen to visit (though Barry always says we shouldn't listen to 'Chinese Whispers' horror stories but experience areas ourselves and form our own opinions!).  However, after reading the write-up in the Nicholson's Guide I'm actually looking forward to being proved wrong and enjoying discovering more about the town.  Some years ago I almost got a senior midwifery post at the Hospital there, but it was at a crucial point in my younger daughter's schooling so it would've been too difficult to move from Sutton Coldfield at that time.  I was told then that there are many quaint villages around Leicester too, so hopefully we'll get a chance to see some of these also over the next few days.

 Rapeseed flowers and poppies - magnificent!

What a lucky (lock & footie) day

We were extremely fortunate that another narrowboat moored at the basin on Tuesday night and were retuning down the Erewash on Wednesday - it meant we could share the 14 locks with them and therefore halve the work.  It still took us until after the England/Slovenia match to complete them all - and of course it looks like it would've been the most exciting (if you can use such a word for football?!) England World Cup match to date!

A lovely man from the Friends of the Cromford Canal Restoration Society who chatted to Barry prior to our departure on Wednesday

Many picturesque canalside cottages on a blue sky day

Another glorious warm and sunny day, many of the locks were in our favour after the half way stage.  We sailed past a boat going in the opposite direction whose occupants said "...yours is the first moving boat we've passed so far today!"  We're pretty sure that this idyll won't last once we're on the River Soar and heading south, so we're making the most of being on a very quiet canal.

Our companion for the day was a narrowboat called 'Hallmark', containing two couples who went up the Erewash on Tuesday, and back again on Wednesday - that's quite a trip!  We've been on the same waterway now since Friday evening and have thoroughly enjoyed the journey and some of its places and people along the way.  It seems such a shame to rush through this graceful canal, but then few people have the luxury of time that we (mostly) have.

More friendly fishermen - they don't have to put up with too many interruptions here

Idyllic surroundings

A timeless, tranquil picture 

Meandering past houses with 'England' flags flying proudly

 

Past the Gallows Inn once more - a lovely lockside pubMany locks in our favour to glide effortlessly into 

Double locks are so much calmer (and less scary for Sandra!) with two boats in

What a perfectly sublime scene 

Awesome old building, must've been a mill in its time

Graceful swans and their cygnets aren't too concerned about their intrusive visitors

  Breathtakingly beautiful

Boat building from the end of the garden - 'perch'ed precariously!

 

We sauntered into 'The Barge Inn' shortly after the match was finished, and found a throng of happy England supporters - so much better than the sombre mood that would've descended had they lost!  Although we're not football fans, we're hoping that England continue to do well as it definitely raises the morale of the public, which can only bring positive consequences for the ailing British economy.

 

Now we've just got to wait for the All Whites to see if they manage to conquer Paraguay on Thursday afternoon - either way we think it'll have little, if any, effect on New Zealanders moods as they're really just pleased to have got through in the first place and are generally happy positive people regardless of sporting prowess or otherwise - though I do recall a certain All Blacks/France Rugby World Cup match (with a British referee) that the kiwis were robbed of winning (!), and it seemed as though the whole country was up in arms for a while.

A couple of mallards hoping to catch a ride

Grateful to have had such a smooth and uneventful trip from one end of the Erewash to the other on such a superb day, we moored for the night just above Trent Lock, and visited the Navigation Inn to show Julie and Lee (back in Gisborne) that the pub they used to visit occasionally when they lived around here is still thriving.  We'll commence our journey south on the River Soar on Thursday.

 

A couple of vibrantly coloured old working boats moored close to Trent Lock

Relaxing after a long lock day at the Navigation Inn, on a balmy summer's evening

And an almost full moon keeps us company across the glass-like River Trent

Stunning, purple tinged roses adorned the lock cottage at Sandiacre Lock

A novel day out with a literary legend

Apart from loving being on the canals and living a fairly simple life with few possessions, it's amazing to be able to discover fascinating information that you never knew before, about people and places.  If you'd asked me previously to tell you about D.H. Lawrence, I could only have said that he wrote Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley's Lover.  Until Tuesday I hadn't realised what an amazing life he led, in just 44 years, and the enormity of his literary prowess. 

Just a small selection of the thousands of works of D.H.Lawrence

We visited the Birthplace Museum and Heritage Centre, all for one admission price of £2.50 each.  The ladies in the museum were awesome - they obviously love D.H. Lawrence and were a mine of information, enthusiastically imparted to all visitors.  He was born at home and lived at 8a Victoria Street, Eastwood, for the first two years of his life.  The house hasn't been substantially altered since those days in the late nineteenth century, and they've attempted to furnish it authentically and done a marvellous job.

D.H.Lawrence's birthplace - Barry forgot to take one of the front of the house!

'Bert' had been a sickly child and his mother didn't expect him to reach infancy.  He managed to survive against the odds, and his mother doted on him, the fourth of five children and youngest of three sons.  Most children in that era (he was born in 1885) were sent to the coal mines from the age of 13 or younger, but Bert gained a scholarship to Nottingham High School hence continued his education subsequently training as a teacher.

A predominantly coal-mining town, terraced houses were built for the workers in rows and squares

At a meeting with one of his professors, Lawrence was introduced to his wife, Frieda, and they were instantly attracted to each other, so much so that she left her husband and three young children and returned to her native Germany where Lawrence joined her and they eventually married in England in 1914.  They had a passionate and fulfilling relationship, despite the pain that would've been caused due to abandoning her children.

He wrote thousands of letters, poems, short stories, novels and plays, and even painted some fabulous pictures which are on display at his birthplace.  Of his most famous works, 'Sons and lovers' is semi-autobiographical and 'Lady Chatterley's lover' was self-published 2 years before he died in 1930 at the age of 44, and he made around £1,000 from this.  Having been extremely poor for most of their lives together (albeit with rich and generous friends), this was an enormous sum of money.  The novel was banned from Britain and America and only published here following a court case in 1960!  Such puritans!  Due to this he's been known as the man who wrote 'dirty books', but he was so much more than that.  He was way ahead of his time, believing that love and sex were more important than intellectual and industrial concerns, and he travelled widely in a time when most of his peers didn't even leave the town they were born, living in places such as Germany, Australia, New Mexico and Italy.

 

 

D.H.Lawrence's headstone, now in the Heritage Museum - he died and was buried in Vence in France, but subsequently his wife Frieda wanted to take him to their home in New Mexico to keep him with her, so she had his body exhumed and the ashes put into a cask and asked her new lover to bring them with him when he came - he states that he threw the ashes away before leaving, but no-one knows for sure.

The sign of the Phoenix was Lawrence's symbol; maybe he felt that he'd 'risen from the ashes' of Eastwood?

 

 

I did succumb to purchasing a copy of each of his most famous works, but as they were only £1.99 each I didn't feel too outrageous!  Having been to his hometown and learnt more about him and the novels, I hope to get more out of them.

The Heritage Centre continues the story of Lawrence and is also worth a visit, but it's definitely not as friendly, informative and welcoming as the Birthplace is.

The Heritage Centre

Some whacky mirrors in the Heritage Centre - talk about thunder thighs!

Following a late lunch and a drink at 'The Sun' pub, we strolled back down the hill to the Basin and had a relaxing evening in another warm summer's day, deciding to stay another night before retracing our steps. 

The sign of the phoenix is apparent everywhere - on gates and showing the way on footpaths

Eastwood church - the only original part is this tower

   Eastwood High Street

A very old van passed by, must've lost its suspension

The youths who'd been hanging around the lock on Monday night were back again and the local Bobby's paid them a visit - we're not sure why they arrived but it may have had something to do the 'litterbug' issues!  As the youths left the area later on, one of them returned for some reason, probably just to show he was 'tough', and overturned the litter bin.  The police swiftly came back and gave chase, but left the litter lying on the ground.  Ah well, most of the youngsters we've met along this stretch have been fine, and they weren't aggressive at all, just normal bored teenagers with nothing better to do, pretty harmless really.

'Ello, 'ello, what's going on ere then?  The youth on the right was the one who tipped over the bin officer!

The countryside D.H.Lawrence loved so much

  Eastwood on the hill

Thanks for pointing out my error Eddie - the England match is on Wednesday at 3pm UK time and the NZ one Thursday at 3pm!  So by the end of the week both countries could be out of the running ...

On Wednesday we're going back down the Erewash, heading out of the midlands, and beginning our descent south, so we're unlikely to catch the match.

Lovely Lupins