21st July 2017 - Kennett and Avon Canal - Bath to Barge Inn (Seend Cleeve)

Friday 21^st July 2017

Pretty village glimpsed from the canal

Kennett and Avon Canal, UK (closer to Devizes)

51 degrees 21.774N

2 degrees 08.524W

An aqueduct, so nifty!

It is cold and drizzly – we have had such glorious heat and sunshine it is about time the UK regained its reputation for dismal summer weather!

Beautiful  wrought-iron Victorian bridge coming out of Bath

Fortunately it doesn’t really matter.

On the cut (locals word for canal)

This is our last day on the Kennett and Avon Canal and we have made our way nearly back to Devizes, where the boat has to be delivered by 9am sharp tomorrow.

Our last day in Bath was action-packed.  Of course!

Royal Crescent

Such a beautiful city…

We went on two free walking tours.

Jane Austen walk

and Mayor’s Walk.

Our guide Peter, full of enthusiasm and information

Both informative, fun, exhausting.

We also went to the Upper Assembly Rooms and saw the Fashion Exhibition.  (Possibly more fascinating for me than for Pete…100 items of mostly women’s clothing over the centuries…)

We have learned A LOT about Bath – Roman times, medieval times, Georgian times.

And they have fabulous cheese at the market!

Pete’s very favourite bit of history is about Queen Victoria. She didn’t like Bath very much at all.  Early on in her reign she came into the city on (I think…) one of the first trains.  Sadly, she heard someone say, as she stepped off the platform, unwittingly revealing a bit of lower leg, “Oh look, the Queen has fat ankles!  And she is pigeon-toed!”  For the next half century or so of her life she preferred to ignore Bath, and insisted on having the curtains closed when she went past in carriage or train…

Remnant of medieval city wall 

Bath continued to put up monuments in her honour, and to create beautiful parks and botanical gardens to commemorate her, fat ankles or no,

Yesterday we managed to whizz most of the way back up the canal, as far as the Barge Inn. We got a mooring right outside and had fish and chips.

Arctic Fox outside Barge Inn (filling up with water)

We shared locks a few times – most of the locks can squeeze in two of the long thin narrowboats at a time.  We had an extra-helpful man the first time…He decided to push their boat over to make room, using his own body as leverage… His long-suffering wife stood above, rolling her eyes, awaiting the inevitable splash…He was dragged out of the canal bleeding from head and fingers and looking just a bit embarrassed…

Just after our friend (I imagine he was called Tezza) was dragged back on board...

His wife and daughters watched all of this impassively.  They said he is dreadfully accident-prone.  They were in Tenerife two months ago and his wife came into the apartment kitchen to find him lying on the floor in a pool of blood – he had slipped and hit his head on a bench.  Since they have been home he has cracked two ribs and now this…

In the morning we went for a slightly chilly walk into the village of Seend Cleeve, hoping to buy maybe a baguette.  Seend Cleeve is shop-less!

But it did have a very cute phone box which has been re-vamped as a free book exchange.

We have so enjoyed the canal, with all of our new bird friends

the swan family

the ducks

the geese

and now, right next to Arctic Fox, some fat and fluffy pigeons.

We have mastered aqueducts, swing bridges and many many locks.

Tomorrow – Cardiff!

Connie (with her man)

 By the way, one of my favourite things thus far about England is the beautiful dogs.  They are all so lovely, well-behaved, well-cared for.  And they are everywhere – in shops, pubs, buses.  So nice!  Last night in the Barge Inn I asked permission to take a photo of a gorgeous white golden retriever called Connie.  Her owners just adore her.  She is three years old now, but when she was a puppy she was just as beautiful.  They idly entered her in a dogfood photo competition, and, of course, she won.  The prize…an enormous metre-wide framed copy of the winning photo…They didn’t know where to put it –English houses are small and cosy - and sent it to the breeder, who uses it for promotional purposes.