Mag’s restless night, and a breezy cruise.

Mags didn’t sleep too well last night. The wind got up, blowing the clouds across a nearly full moon, and Meg and I were muttering in our sleep, making Mags think there were people with torches outside! So she slept a bit later than normal this morning.

Meanwhile Meg and I set off to see Husbands Bosworth village. Seems a pleasant place, with a pretty spectacular church.

All Saints Church, Husbands Bosworth. Parts of the structure are believed to date from 1220.
The name of the village may be derived from the Saxon for Bar’s farm or settlement. The “Husbands” (farmers) prefix was added, probably in the 16C, to differentiate it from the market town of Market Bosworth to the West.
It is likely that the area has been settled for the last 5500 years!
In July 1616, nine witches of the village were hanged in Leicester for allegedly bewitching the son of the Lord of the Manor. I wonder if it was the shades of these women who kept Mags awake last night….
More recently, the RAF had an airfield built here in 1943, primarily as a training field.
It’s now used by the local gliding club, and the East Midlands Air Support Unit.
This is a rapid-response air support unit, set up by the combined police forces of Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire.

The General Store/Newsagent provided a newspaper and a birthday card for Vic, and I couldn’t resist the treacle tart on the counter.

There’s also a Post Office further up the street, passed as I headed out onto the hill to look for the horse track leading over the tunnel. I intended picking it up where it crosses the main road, then walking down back onto the towpath at the tunnel mouth. But what I think it was is now incorporated into someone’s drive, with a sign saying “Warning, Alsation Loose Inside”. Gave that a miss then, and went back the way we came.

We finally set off at around 11:15, not intending to go so far. The wind wasn’t too much of a problem, but the way this section twists and turns you’re never quite sure which direction it’s going to come from next! One minute it’s in your face, the next it’s behind your right ear!
It’s stripped most of the remaining leaves off the trees, now.
Husbands Bosworth Tunnel

Past Welford Junction and the 1¼ mile arm to the town, and the good moorings just after the junction. We’ll probably stop here on the way back, either before or after nipping down the arm to the sanitary station.

Welford Junction


We toddled on a bit further, crossing into Northamptonshire (The Rose of the Shires, apparently) stopping between bridges 39 and 38. We’re fairly sheltered from the wind here. I was just tying up when a chap on NB Pintpot shouted as he passed, “We got frozen in there once!” Not tonight though, I think.


Moored
Took Meg out for a bit, and found the path across the fields to Welford. The waymarkers aren’t as good here as around Foxton. You have to be almost on top of the little white discs before you see them. May go tomorrow morning for bread and milk.
Either that or there’s Yelvertoft and Crick a bit further on….

Bacon butties and treacle tart for lunch. Eat your heart out, Graygal!

Since leaving the Trent in October, we’ve steadily climbed, using the Soar valley then cutting across country. We’ve made 320 feet, and this is the highest point on the canal between Sawley and Fenny Stratford, just south of Milton Keynes. Here the canal starts to climb again, to the next summit level at Tring on the edge of the Chiltern Hills.

Locks 0, miles 4½