This is narrowboat country

It's not been a successful day for photography - but today saw a significant change in the waterways we are cruising.

Yesterday was spent in a hire car - taking Mic to a university appointment, popping home for laundry, and collecting a swanky (and bloody expensive!) rechargeable Dyson vacuum cleaner which will replace the much less powerful Oreck on the boat and (thanks to its filters) should further reduce the triggers for Hugh's asthma. Much cheaper than buying another domestic battery & a larger inverter so we could run our home vacuum cleaner on the boat.

Heading upstream on the Trent out of Nottingham, the current was surprisingly strong so the going was slow. It was also strikingly pretty - and much busier than anything we had seen so far this summer. We stopped at Sawley for ice cream and for Mic to gaze longingly at the dolls house workshop there, and then again at Shardlow for lunch - the Eastern end of the Trent & Mersey Canal. This is narrowboat country now.

If you think river cruising is relaxing - canal cruising is hibernation in comparison.

After a whole morning of sitting on the boat roof, drinking tea and generally relaxing, we were exhausted. So we found a pretty spot and moored up, put a table and chairs in a shady spot on the towpath, and drank some more tea.