Changing places.

3 Locks 8 miles moored bridge 58 Oxford canal.
Total of 221 locks and 233¹/₂ miles and 8 Tunnels since 5th Nov 2006

I t was a nice rural overnight mooring but we needed to move closer to civilization for supplies etc.
I t has been another beautiful day although slightly windy. Along the way we were running parallel with a disused railway line of which there are plenty around this area. On the other side of a farmer’s field I spotted an old signal gantry still standing and only missing signal arms. A quick photo stop and we were under way again.

We stopped for lunch at a delightful mooring directly opposite a nesting swan. When we moored the cob (male) was sitting on the nest and the hen was swimming around feeding.
Shortly after our arrival they changed places with a display of courtship and the cob spent the next 15 minutes pulling up more nesting material from the surrounding reed bed and placing it on the side of the nest and she pulled it closer to the top and re arranged it to her liking.

This was 1 of 2 nesting swans we saw in our travels today. Up until now we have only seen ducks with ducklings.
There was also some resplendent narrowboats along the way, some of which I managed to photograph along with a circa 1950 ambulance converted to a motor home.
We are now moored by Elliots Field which is actually a park in the suburb of Brownsover, Rugby. We remembered mooring here on our maiden voyage in March 2004. The BW facilities here have all been boarded up due to vandalism which is a bit of a pain. Brownsover Hall is the place where Frank Whittle worked on developing the Jet engine. Today the Hall is now a pub. Of course Rugby is the renowned birthplace of the game of rugby. It was started in a school here in 1823. One overpass over the canal has a mural painted on it depicting the historic dates and names of rugby events. Some of the names also bear the signature of the player mentioned.