Fenny Compton to Napton Junction via Rugby and Daventry: 9/4/23

 To celebrate my first decent night's sleep I had a full English breakfast at the Merrie Lion in Fenny Compton, including a slice of black pudding, and set off rested and refreshed towards Rugby. On the way I stopped at Drayton Water, a parkland area around the local reservoir. Normally you can walk right around the lake, but the path was closed at one point for maintenance, and at 7k I doubt that I would have done it anyway. Instead I walked along the path on the edge, with chill winds blowing around me -- but no rain yet. I saw some mergansers in the lake and later on, from the car, a grouse, just standing quietly by the side of the road waiting for someone to shoot it. They are very well trained. And to the mammal list you can add grey squirrels. No hedgehogs yet. 

Arrived in Rugby and followed what seemed to be a bizarrely convoluted route to the residential area in the north, where one of the two Rugby laundromats is located -- the other being on the forecourt of a petrol station. It was open when I got there, and rather eerily deserted, though someone else did turn up to do a load later on. There are careful instructions not to leave your washing while it's in progress, but nobody else seems to pay any attention to them. But I did a wash -- four pounds -- and a dry -- two pounds -- and emerged with clean, fluffy clothes. 

I drove around Rugby a little to see what it was like. Lots of narrow terraced streets, parked up on both sides, with only room for one car at a time; if you see another coming you have to hope one of you finds a wide spot first. It struck me as odd that in a smallish town in the remote countryside -- inasmuch as anywhere here is remote -- people should still build and live in the same kind of high-density housing you find in central London. But I saw the same kind of thing later at Napton -- semi-detached suburban houses on the verge of sweeping pastures.

From Rugby then to Daventry, where I turned off to investigate what I thought was Daventry Country Park, but which turned out to be a narrow parking strip along the edge of the reservoir. So I squeezed the car in, had a look at that, and crossed the road to another stretch of parkland which wasn't Daventry Country Park either, but turned out to have the Oxford Canal running through it and into the long Braunston Tunnel. So if I had been walking the canal, I would have ended up at the same place. All that's visible from outside the tunnel is some brick chimneys for ventilation.

And eventually I did find the real Daventry Country Park, with yet another reservoir, and strolled around there for a while before having some of the food I had bought in Fenny Compton -- apples and grapes and carrots and goat cheese -- and continuing on to Napton Junction. The accommodation is called Wigram's, but Wigram's is also the name of the marina, so I mistakenly stopped there first.It's full of canal boats, although not many of them are currently occupied, and on a hill above the marina there are four odd little huts in a modern architectural style. I took these to be accommodation cabins, but there are no beds in them -- just chairs and tea-making equipment. Do boaters occasionally rent a cabin just so they can stand up straight and look at the canal from above rather than alongside? I don't get it.

Further on, across the canal and back to the Wigram's accommodation, an old house situated more or less opposite to the marina. Nicely situated, with huge collections of old paperbacks and film posters and walking sticks; they seem at some point to have inherited the contents of a second-hand shop that was closing down. And they have the largest collection of green Penguin mystery paperbacks that I have ever seen. But I'm not sure there were any I haven't read.

After settling in I forced myself to stroll along the canal and into Napton itself. I had planned to go to the Cidery, but that was a bit too far. Nice views over a long bend in the canal -- much busier here than it was in Oxford -- and some very old and impressive houses. There's obviously plenty of money around here, although apart from sheep and racehorses -- and cider -- I'm not sure where from. Came back past the local pub, where I had a pint of Hookey's, and returned to Wigram's with aching legs. I don't think I am suffering from a shortage of walking.

Apropos of which, I have now booked a car for the Coventry -- Bath part of the walk. But not being in a mad panic, I was able to get a much, much better price. The car itself is very cheap; what puts the price up a bit is the GPS, but the one I have is so handy that I felt reluctant to do without it.

That just leaves me out in the wilds without a car for one day; tomorrow when I return this one to Banbury I will have to then catch public transport to my accommodation. But at least there will be public transport.