The Ashby Canal

At last! Sunshine and warmth!  The rain stops and as we enter the Ashby the sun breaks through and the world looks a brighter place.  We fell in love with this stretch of 20 miles of lock free canal on our last visit in the autumn of 2015.

Once through the first hour of the journey along this beautiful canal the countryside and peace take over as we meander further and further into isolation. One problem with this remoteness is the poor mobile and Internet reception. It seems very strange in thus day and age of instant communication to be out of touch with the outside world most of the time.

During our travels as night sets in the countryside falls silent only to come alive again with the dawn chorus.  We have been woken in the early hours by birdsong,  diesel trains, the ŕumble of a motorway in the distance and the clatter of farm vehicles beginning their busy day but never have we been woken to the sound of a woodpecker! It was quite magical if a little irritating!
We have enjoyed a bit of history over the past few days whilst visiting the site of Richard III 's death on the Bosworth battle fields which bought about the end of the War of the Roses.
We also paid a visit to Market Bosworth, which is a charming, small market town where we met an assortment of very friendly shopkeepers, one of whom was most helpful when we learnt that the Post Office is now closed down. She estimated the weight of a small packet that we needed posting and put the guestimate amount of stamps on and pointed us in the direction of the postbox. Hope it gets to it's destination!

Another perfect mooring tonight brings us to the end of another warm day with the promise of more to come.  Summer at last me thinks!