Mixed weather as we cross the Leicester Summit

I thought the forecast said that we’d wake up to rain, but it didn’t actually properly arrive till about 12:30. We’d had a couple of drops before that, but they dried as soon as they hit the roof.

Our neighbours across the way invited themselves for breakfast.

We set off at ten to ten, under cloudy skies after a bright start.

The moorings opposite Crick Marina


Boat names on the back panel are often accompanied by the home “port”, we had Northwich, Cheshire on ours first time around. I particularly like this one…    

The Leicester Section summit level, like that of the South Oxford, twists and turns through a landscape of low hills and valleys. This adds to it’s charm, but makes steering challenging some times, especially when meeting oncoming traffic on the shallow bends.
You could be forgiven for thinking you are on a river in some stretches.




As I said yesterday, the Grand Junction Canal Company had a big interest in the construction of this link, even to the point of casting the mile markers.


The canal is particularly windy around Yelvertoft, to the point where the same road crosses the canal three times in just ¾ of a mile.

After that it starts to straighten out a little, heading generally north. It’s always remote, leaving the villages off to the side of the navigation.
The only sign of civilisation today was when we passed under the busy A14!

The many brick-built accommodation bridges are far more attractive.

Sitting below Downton Hill, the medieval village of the same name is no more than a memory carried in the name of the hill and of the canal bridge nearby.
This was another one of those subsistence-level farming communities that were destroyed by the Enclosures Acts. Northampton has probably the highest proportion of “Lost Villages” due to the Acts, because the majority of them still relied on the traditional open-field ridge and furrow farming system.

The rain came on in earnest now, so I started looking for somewhere to pull in. We’d stopped on a stretch of piling just up from Sybolds Spinney Bridge before, so we knew it was deep enough.

Moored near Sybolds Spinney Bridge


Of course, it wasn’t long before the rain eased and then stopped, and it’s turned into a fine evening.

Meg’s a little under the weather, she’s either been stung, bitten or scratched herself in an armpit (legpit?), and has been scratching the itch, making it worse. So now I’m using Hibiscrub to keep it clean and she’s wearing an old tee-shirt so she can’t get at it.

Not a happy bunny...

I've promised her it'll come off when we go for a walk.

Locks 0, miles 9¼