And…we’re back in the room

Apologies for lack of blog over the last few days – one baaaad day (which shall hereafter be referred to only as “the Penkridge Incident”) followed by two nights without wifi (or phone signal or TV for that matter).
Now, we are in Audlem.  the sun is shining brightly, we have managed to fit our 60ft of narrowboat into the last 61ft of mooring space, and life is good.
The highlights – getting a most reasonably priced diesel-fill and pumpout at Stafford Boat Club, courtesy of the wonderful Pete; shopping in Brewood (great deli, great butcher, incredibly helpful chemists & surgery (who forgot some diabetes medication then?!)); Bonjour's 3rd birthday on Friday;  the Wharf Tavern at Goldstone for great, reasonably priced pub grub; seeing two kingfishers today.
Pictures:
Sculpture at Stafford Boat Club

Yarn-bombing at Deptmore Lock

Gailey lock & “Round House”

High Bridge at Grub Street Cutting (with Cap’n Birdseye)

Former Cadbury’s wharf at Knighton (no chocolate landed here now – shame!)

Heron keeping watch at Goldstone wharf

One way to decorate a tree stump

Tomorrow, we go to Nantwich to do the laundry.  Deep joy.

Dodging the showers

Sorry, had a long day yesterday – too tired to blog at the end!

Monday

We reached our first objective of Fradley Junction in mostly bright sunshine and amazingly for a Bank Holiday, found a mooring spot really close to the junction. Fradley was its usual busy self, populated with boats, boaters and gongoozlers in equal measure

We’d never tried the cafe there (the Kingfisher) so decided on lunch, which we enjoyed outside.  Even the short shower of rain did not spoil things as the table umbrella kept the food dry at least!  anyway, a good lunch and we will return.

On then to tackle the 2 locks, which luckily were manned by helpful volunteer lock-keepers.

At the second, Shadehouse lock, the lockie told me he’d seen only four boats during the morning, so it seemed the weather forecast was keeping folks away even though the reality didn’t match up to the predictions.

Shade House, next to the lock, is for sale

Attractive property in prime canalside position with a 70’ mooring thrown in? – needless to say we were straight on to Rightmove. Er, £625k.  Back to the Lottery then.

One more lock a mile on, then it was straightforward cruising in alternate sunshine and showers, through some very attractive countryside.  These were particularly impressive

We passed through the somewhat less enticing Armitage and Rugeley (where we resisted the temptation to visit yet another Tesco).  Rugeley has the air of an average, unassuming, normal town, but has two dark secrets – near Bridge 67 was the home of William Palmer, the “Rugeley Poisoner”, and at Bridge 68 are the “Bloody Steps”, scene of the murder of one Christina Collins, on which the Inspector Morse novel “The Wench is Dead” was based.

After such excitement we were ready to moor up for the night and found a pleasant spot near a farm with alpacas in addition to the usual sheep and pigs.

Tuesday

As we were only planning a short journey today we made a late start, and by lunchtime were mooring at Great Haywood right by Shugborough Hall – again, we found this astonishing for half-term, especially as th weather was much better than promised!  We visited the excellent Canalside Farm Shop to buy our lunch before making a left onto the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal to moor at Tixall Wide, another of our favourite spots.  We’d hoped for a view of the Gatehouse

but those spots were taken.  Still, not many moorings can boast their very own Triffid.

Time for a chillout – and a couple more of those squares.

Sunny Sunday

Began with disappointment as it was still grey and raining, but the sun broke through and has been with us for most of the day.  We continued along the Coventry Canal, spotting some photogenic animals

Followed by an impressive display of red-hot pokers

These turned out to be the grounds of Pooley Hall, one time the home of Motown singer Edwin Starr.

On then to the two Glascote Locks, where we encountered the first lock queue of our trip.  With help from a charming French lady from the boat behind (she liked our boat name!), we were soon through and ready to moor up at Fazeley for a visit to the shop (yup, Tesco again) and lunch.  Sod’s law dictated that the gas bottle would run out in the middle of its preparation.  There followed a frenzied search for the  spanner, accompanied by clanking, banging and cursing from the gas locker as the scent of half-cooked bacon in our nostrils urged us to complete the changeover in double-quick time.

Meal over, we carried on in glorious sunshine to Hopwas (which resembled Piccadilly Circus for boats) and thence out into the countryside for our mooring for the night.

My Project

I have a knitting project for this trip which will eventually provide a multicoloured afghan.  It is a “mystery” project whereby the pattern for each design of square is released each Monday and you are then supposed to knit 3 squares in each of 2 colours during the following week.  My tally so far is one square

but I hope to finish another one tonight!  More exciting designs to follow…

Never complain it’s cloudy

 

Friday

Cloudy.  Bit of a dull day.  Went from near Brinklow to Hartshill and moored outside The Anchor.  Didn’t see many boats.  Not a lot happened.  Day enlivened by the wondrous sight that is Charity Dock, near Bedworth.  Apparently it is a great place to get repairs and things done to your boat, but it’s more famous for its weird and wonderful collection of “characters”

After the briefest of stops at Nuneaton for “essentials”, we arrived at the Anchor at 3.10, spent the afternoon “chillin’” and enjoyed a great steak and chips there in the evening.

Saturday

We were up by 7.30 but 5 minutes later it started raining, and it carried on for six & a half hours.  Throughout the morning we were saying “shall we move? no”, then “it’s getting a bit brighter” “we’ll make a decision at 1” followed by “we’ll make a decision at 1.30”.  Just after we’d said “we’ll stay put” the rain stopped and the sun came out!  So we set off for Atherstone, wanting to get the 11 locks behind us.  Lock 1 was great, ready filled for us and it was sunny

 

By lock 2, which we had to fill, the heavens had opened again. Luckily this shower was short and sharp, but from then on all the locks were against us, ie empty, and filling every one became tedious as these locks are notoriously “slow to fill and quick to empty”.  No wonder I was fed up!

(Brian said I wouldn’t publish that one!)

Finally exiting the last lock at 5.45, we looked for a good mooring, which we eventually found just as a thunderstorm started.  Tomorrow will be better, they say.

The 2014 Grand Tour begins…

Why do we always underestimate the time needed to load the car?  After all, it was only  clothes, food, drink, logs (just in case), a new portable barbecue, a wine rack (which might or might not fit), a pot of basil, ditto thyme, one laptop, 2 iPads, 1 camera and an empty rucksack (explanation later).

Arriving at the marina (following a visit to Tesco for things we might just have forgotten), we decide we must get a move on, but first we’ll have lunch.  We unload and find that the wine rack doesn’t fit and we really don’t need that many logs (the sun is shining, and it’s hot).  So back in the boot they go.

Our departure from the marina at 2.45 is a bit of a false start as we spend 20 minutes hovering near the entrance, our way out being blocked by two boats waiting for the first lock.  By 3.45 we are through the 3 Calcutt locks and as we head towards Braunston we’re pleased to see that the somewhat aggressive swan we encountered last month is showing off his new family:

:

Quite soon the familiar sight of Braunston church appeared:

The sunshine stayed with us until we moored up about a mile north of Braunston at 6, and indeed for the rest of the evening.  Tomorrow’s forecast is gloomy, but we don’t believe it:

Thursday

The weather is indeed better than promised and soon we are on our way down the three Hillmorton locks.  There actually six locks here, in pairs (the idea being to speed the passage of working boats). You just head for whichever of the pair is most in your favour, ie full, and preferably with another boat having just emerged so the gate is  open!  This morning there are plenty of boats heading up so our passage is swift, but the advantage is lost when we stop for water at the bottom of the locks and what is known to us as “the slowest tap in the world” takes a full 40 minutes to fill our tank.

On to Rugby next, where we stop to visit – you guessed it – Tesco!  Rain is still threatening, but we want to make sure of having sufficient barbecue food for the weekend. So it’ll be a wet one then. Sorry.

At 3 we head off for one of our favourite mooring spots at All Oaks Wood (not true, some of them are beeches and there are probably other interlopers).  At last the promised weather materialises and it’s a pretty damp journey, but fortunately the rain stops just before we tie up and soon the blue skies appear again.  It’s a lovely  mooring, but the peace has been briefly shattered by a turf war between rival moorhens:

 

The black ones won.  We think.