Days 1 - 3: Sawley to Redhill

Our summer trip this year is to Cambridge via Northampton.  The first leg is south up the River Soar to Leicester, then continuing south via the Grand Union canal to Northampton where we'll turn east at Gayton Junction down the River Nene into the East Anglian waterways. On a previous trip, we did the Leicester Ring anti-clockwise, so parts will be familiar but otherwise it's new and unknown territory.

First leg: Sawley to Gayton

 Jan making new luminous covers for our mooring pins

Denis about to do final engine checks

Setting off from our mooring at Sawley Marina

Blue Adeline newly polished, on Sawley Cut

Down the River Trent towards the mouth of the River Soar and Redhill Marina - avoiding two people 'wild swimming' in the Trent on the way

Three days stopover at Redhill in the shadow of Ratcliffe power station and, for Jan, a trip to London to work

The power station stands on the site of a Roman settlement and discoveries include a 'curse tablet' from the 3rd or 4th century invoking the wrath of the gods for the theft of a mule. Perhaps an early form of social media!

Ratcliffe curse tablet, in Latin 'mirror writing'