The next day started fine and I popped into the shops for provisions. By the time I got back to the boat storms had blown in and we had serious amounts of rain. I did a bit of reading while waiting for it to fizzle out. When it was at its worst I was hit by a boat that must have got disoriented in the rain/hail/thunder & lightning. It is the hardest anything has ever hit poor old Olivia and a few things flew off the shelves - luckily none of it breakable. I popped my head out and the helmsman just shrugged his shoulders. I know these things happen but i couldn't understand why he was going so fast and why he should hit me when I was in quite a wide part of the canal and not near a bridge or anything. Oh well, no lasting damage in evidence. By 3pm the weather had cheered up and I moved on to my next destination, Polesworth. It was a lovely fine evening again and I had a walk around the village.
On Friday I went to visit the Abbey and some of the other old buildings. I got chatting to several people there including a boater who has very recently been widowed and is worried that she might not use the boat on her own. I tried to encourage her to give it a go. In the hour or two that I was there, the River Anker had burst its banks and was visibly rising as we watched. I moved my car out of the car park to higher ground and within the next hour or so the car park disappeared under about 3 feet of water. One lad of eleven or twelve just couldn't resist wading through the water waist deep, much to the amusement of his mates. They just don't understand the dangers.
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