Full Metal Wheelbarrow

The weatherpeeps made a hash of it again, so when we set of for our walk this morning it was raining like a big wet rainy thing instead of the sunshine hey'd promised us.

I'd hoped it would be a lots of photos day, but the light wasn't good enough really, so I only took a few.

We set off down the path that used to be the Derby to Ashby railway down to the canal where we pootled along to Weston Lock.

There was a big queue of boats waiting to go through the lock and I took some pictures there :-

Lock gates closed.

And open to let the boats out

Then we toddled into the village of Weston on Trent itself, where we were too early for either of the pubs to be open, but the nice man at the Coopers arms sold us two cups of coffee anyway.  We were extremely grateful for this, being decidedly cold and damp by this point.

The route back was slightly different, bypassing much of the canal bank we'd walked along and taking us past the Ukrainian Youth Centre. Why there should be such a thing in a small village in Derbyshire, I have no idea - all Google could tell me was that the association took over one of the old POW camps in the area after WWII.

At least the rain had stopped on the way back and the pictures were slightly better.

A boat coming under a bridge we'd just crossed

A rather nice little footbridge over a tributry of the river Trent

We were rather stiff after walking 8 miles today, but it was good to get out walking again. It was also a chance to test some of Rob's new gear. the camping stove didn't get used, but we tried out the new walking socks, which kept our toes nice and cosy and Rob found his new rucksack good for walking because it was narrow enough that he doesn't knock his elbows on it when he moves his arms.