Fine George’s Bridge Number 9 (Trent & Mersey Canal) – Thursday 22nd August

I had a really bad night’s sleep – I was so tired last night that I thought I would sleep for ever but after a couple of hours I was awake and then woke up about every hour after that.

I took the hire car back this morning after making a complaint to Enterprise over the phone.  I had already decided to make a complaint yesterday about the customer service at the Burton office but knew now that I really had to make one otherwise there would be no way of getting my £700 excess back.  I saw a different young man in the office who couldn’t have been nicer and was so apologetic.  He called the Assistant Manager over who was equally as apologetic and ended up giving me 15% off the hire car we need to hire next week from Leicester.  The first young man drove me back to Willington and it turns out that the chap from yesterday has only been with Enterprise for a few weeks but that is still no excuse for not telling me about the hand brake which, reading between the lines, he should have done.

We moved on down the canal turning into Mercia Marina as Richard wanted to go to Midland Chandlers.  I took Muffin in and as soon as I wasn’t looking he was trying to take things off the bottom shelves!  I had to check his mouth before we left!

Fine George's Bridge

We then had a couple of locks (we are now back on the wide ones) and then pulled over for the night at Fine George’s Bridge - I wonder who Fine George was??  I can’t find anything about him on the internet except for people asking who he was!

We have a lovely view from our mooring spot however we are only about 2 miles from Donnington Park and the drone of motorbikes racing round the track was a bit testing but fortunately it stopped about 5ish.

 

View from our mooring spot

Richard did a barbecue this evening and, for once, we were able to eat on the towpath as well as cook.  As we sat and ate we could see birds swooping down over the canal – I’m not sure if they were swifts or swallows.  Looking on the internet I would say they looked like swifts but acted like swallows 
 

Willington to Fine George’s Bridge

7.62 miles
2 locks