Nottingham to Atherstone *5

As Leigh and I went through the day in a cold-fueled delirium we each had spurts of energy followed by a deep fatigue. Leigh set out in the morning for some supplies and returned half hour later with a bag of milk, eggs, fire-lighters and bacon. By mid-day I had enough of grumbling and decided to leaf through the book, kindly given to us by mum called, Food from your garden by Readers Digest. There is a section on Food from the Country which details some foods found in the wilds. I decided to head along the towpath and see what free foods I could find.


There were bountiful blackberries and so I set to riffling through the bushes, being pricked and stung whilst I reached for the juciest berries under leaves.


Following the guide in the book, I discovered Elderberry and picked bunches of these to enjoy.


I had collected enough and wanted to get underway with making the produce into something lovely, so decided upon a crumble. I had read that Elderberry combined with blackberry is a good choice. So from the stalks of Elderberry I used a fork to remove the berries easily. I rinsed all the berries and piled them in a large glass oven-proof dish. We were pretty much out of butter so I made the crumble with olive oil and flour we've had for a while and I threw in some Whetgerm and Oats.

This is how it looked before putting in the oven, I added some walnuts on top...


And so for dinner we sat and ate our berry crumble with vanilla ice cream, mmmmm......


By early evening we were both feeling more chipper so decided upon a short jaunt to charge the batteries for light in the evening. We said farewell to our hedgerow-side mooring and I ran ahead to open up Dallow Lock ready for Leigh to steer her in.


It was a very narrow lock, for one boat at a time. Leigh did complain of a surge from the boat as I opened the paddles but I thought it was a nice little lock with easy gates to open, not at all threatening. It's funny how each lock has it's own characteristics.


We passed some gardens leading on to the canal edge, waved to the house owners and looked ahead...


We pass Shobnal Fields and under bridge 33


We approach a boatyard, with a sign neither of us recognise until we moor, of course, pump out...


We are in need of emptying the tank so tomorrow we will make enquiries.