Coventry Basin

Today was the day for Geoff to have his Urban Fix.  First things first however so we stopped at Bridge 10 so that he could go into Longford to the barbers he had seen yesterday.  Half an hour later he returned nicely tidied up and all smiles as haircut and beard trim had only cost him a fiver!!

It is only just over 5 miles up to the Coventry basin but about half way the canal gets decidedly grungy and we had to have two stops for Geoff`s most unfavourite pastime.

After bridge 3 the water becomes miraculously cleaner again thankfully.  Not far before the end is a new pedestrian bridge

and then the narrow entrance to the basin and terminus

and finally the basin itself

the run up was almost as grotty as I remembered it from 2006 when we came up here in Tickey, our shared narrowboat.

After a misty start the sun appeared about 11 and we had another very hot day, so we delayed our trip to town until a little later.   We decided we would go to the Evening prayer service at Coventry Cathedral.  They were in the midst of their preparations for a big service tomorrow to commemorate 50 years since the rebuilding.  The service was to be held therefore in a small side chapel, the Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane

Before the service we had time to browse and even saw a music and dance group rehearsing for the following day`s service.

Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane

At the appointed hour a priest duly appeared and started the service, there were only 4 of us present.  After a good 5 minutes when we had reached the psalm, another 4 people noisily joined us, made a great to-do of finding the required books, deciding everyone had to share and one of them even went up to one of the original congregation and shook hands and asked her if she had had a good day!!  What I found so amazing about this rude behaviour was that two of the late entrants were bishops........and one of them was the one to greet this other lady...unbelieveable!

Afterwards we wandered round the outside ..................

What is left of the older Cathedral

The new built onto the old

.............and finished off by finding a nice pub for a cooling drink......

5 miles, 1 lock, 3hrs 30 min (including barber stop and weed hatch stops)