A valuable lesson learnt!

Its not one of my best moments that's for sure. With dinner to prepare last night and fishing having all but dried up, I placed my pole with line still attached on the roof. What I had forgotten to do was remove the bait from the hook. Now whether I hadn't realised the line was still dangling precariously just above the water or if a gust of wind had dislodge the line, all I know is about 15 minutes later there was an awful commotion outside the lounge window. I jumped up to see 2 swans with 5 cygnets all trying to get away from my pole. How my pole never went in the canal is more by sheer luck because if it had I hate to think what would have happened to one of the signets. What I can gather is the cygnet managed to get hold of the bait on the end of the line and had effectively managed to hook itself. With the elastic in the pole keeping the cygnet from escaping, both parents were frantically trying to herd the baby away. I leapt into the well deck, grabbed hold of the pole and tried to bring the cygnet toward me. This angered the Cob and within a second he was hissing loudly, flapping his wings and trying to attack me. Ian arrived on the scene and managed to get the Cob away from the cygnet. This then allowed me to cut the line as near to the cygnet as possible and with a sense of relieve the cygnet swam away. I worried about the hook still being in its mouth and thanked my lucky stars that I only use barbless hooks. I must admit I worried about the cygnet all night and was ever so relieved when they all turned up looking well this morning. So the moral to this tale is never ever leave bait on a hook if the rod or pole is unattended!

All look to be okay.

This morning, after walking back to the facility block to empty loo, (the next place to empty and water up is Sutton Cheney and if the weather holds we may well stay in the vicinity of Shackerstone to paint the roof. Best to have both cassettes completely empty then!!!!!) we headed back the way we came. We would have liked to moor on the 48 hour moorings before bridge 52 but notices had been put up asking, very polity I may add, if boaters would refrain from mooring from 6.30pm onwards. An evening fishing match had been arranged and, not one for confrontation, we moved on to moor right back on our original mooring by the aqueduct. Tonight we are again going out for a meal at the Rising Sun. This time with our friends Lynda and Tony. Tonight is grill night and for £7.80 seems like a reasonable deal.

Here are some photos of our 1 hour journey back to Shackerstone

Snarestone Tunnel North portal

One of two bream caught today

And is this taking the P!!!!!!!!

And finally:-

Some sort of tiny moth I believe. A stowaway on our boat!

Close up of Honeysuckle