Tuesday 22 June 2010

Leicester

Having a lovely cruise along the Leicester section at the moment. I like the way the river Soar meanders in and out with the Grand Union so that one minute you have canal and through the next lock, you have wide river and scary weirs. I love the wiggly bits of the Soar - I had to keep my wits about me to make sure I didn't wander up one of the many little branches off the main flow that don't appear on the map!
In some fine company, I got to explore Leicester for a couple of days, highlights being a folk festival, a quirky bar and delcious curry. I think I like Leicester very much. We came across this wonderful building designed by 'Tanky'!
There are 16 heads along the front and at first, I thought they were all different people but the plaque tells us that they are all Tanky - Leicester's first private detective, in various disguises, which seem to mainly comprise of changing his hat and re-arranging his beard :-)



I didn't get any good pictures of the other faces but it's up from the station if you're in the city and want to take a look.

Aren't the days wonderfully long and the nights woefully short! I woke at 4.15am and it was so light I couldn't go back to sleep. My brain tells me to get up and do stuff! I took this photo at 4.30am:

2 comments:

Sheila said...

I'm surprised I didn't bump into you as I was moored at Castle Gardens on 18th and 19th June and one of the boat's I was chatting to were off to the Big Session. I'm "doing" the Soar for the 1st time, too, and enjoying it very much.

Llosgi said...

oh sorry to have missed meeting you Sheila - though I think I do remember seeing 'Olivia' somewhere along the way. I get a bit confused about places and dates! Hope the rest of your trip goes smothly - isn't the weather fantastic for boating!
- Carrie