Hanging about in a bit of a haze

Thursday 26 April

Having changed our minds about where to stop last night, we were now unnecessarily facing towards Rugeley. Unfortunately, the nearest winding hole is virtually at Rugeley, so the morning was spent boating down there, winding and boating back.

Just as we were about to set off, an American guy approached us and asked for help. He was off a Shakespeare Classic line boat, and it seems that one of their number had tried to run a 2 kWatt hairdryer off the inverter, which wasn't up to it and switched off. They'd been unable to get it back on again, and were completely confused by the switch panel.

I agreed to see what could be done, and leaving Sheila to work Sanity down the lock with help from John who'd turned up, I walked down to where they were moored below. After a lot of clicking of breakers on and off to no effect, the guy said, "there's this other switch here", and drew my attention to a remote panel for the inverter, which was indeed showing 'overload'. I switched it off and on again, and the 'power on' light came on to everyone's joy.

As I left the boat, they insisted on presenting me with a bottle of wine for this act of hi tech wizardry. I protested that switching a few switches wasn't in any way worth that much, but they would not be gainsaid.

Boating on through quite steady traffic, we came to Colwich lock and had to wait for the boat in front to go down and one below to come up. As Sheila left the lock, the boat stopped in midstream with me still waiting on the towpath. Sheila indicated that the prop seemed to have filled up with something, and threw me the centre line to pull her in to the lock mooring. Despite my best endeavours, she wouldn't move. Sheila accordingly switched off the engine where she was and went down the weedhatch to check the prop. Nothing was found, but the boat still wouldn't move.

She started up again, and applied heavy revs with me leaning on the centreline as well. Slowly she edged forward and eventually came clear of whatever she'd been sitting on. Sheila reported bits of black plastic in the wash, so it looks like some kind soul had dumped some rubbish bags in the cut. The general populace has this fantasy that canals are bottomless, so that anything thrown in there disappears for ever.

Carrying on towards Rugeley, we passed the Taft, a base for the BCF, or Boater's Christian Fellowship. They have a swan nesting area there, where last year we'd seen a lone trumpeter swan. Trumpeters aren't native to the UK, and this one is believed to be an escape. To our delight, it was still there, and obliged with its characteristic honk, which sounds like nothing so much as an old air bulb car horn, as used to comic effect by Harpo Marx.

Sheila performed a model turn in the winding hole, which is the remnant of a rail/canal interchange basin, possibly left over from the construction of what is now the West Coast Mainline. We got back to Great Haywood in time for lunch, and moored below the lock.

A relaxed afternoon followed after the exertions of the previous three days - brass was polished, crochet crocheted and so on. Sheila rang Stone to confirm the arrangements for our dry-docking next week. A wasp entered the cabin, the first of the year. The new electric fly swat proved to have been a good buy - it's not potent enough to kill a wasp, but stuns it, so it can be lifted out and dumped in the canal for some lucky fish.

I wrote up the blog, and we had dinner.

Friday 27 April

Apparently it rained hard in the night, but we didn't hear it. We made a lazy start, since we've got a few days to kill - we need to be in Stone on Sunday afternoon, but it's a bare day's cruising to there from Great Haywood.

We went up the lock and on past the junction to the waterpoint, and did our usual trick of starting a washload whilst watering. I bought a cylinder of Calor gas to replace one that ran out a couple of weeks back.

We were just preparing to back off the waterpoint and turn through the junction to go back to Tixall for the night when Carolann Richardson from Autumn Years appeared on the bridge, quite unexpectedly. She's gone ahead of their boat to check the junction as they came from Tixall. Much friendly greeting and "Have a cup of coffee", so Graham brought Autumn Years through the junction and tied up on the moorings to its right, and I backed Sanity down and tied outside him, the cut being very wide here.

We had a happy natter, especially about the Brycelands' plans in putting the boat building business up for sale (it's not clear if they are selling the name Braidbar as well) and the prospects of a Braidbar owners get together at the Crick boat show. After all this they set off south again and we went on to Tixall.

After lunch we took everything off the roof, swept it and cleaned all available brass. The weather was now improving greatly.

It must seem to readers of this blog that we spend a lot of time on routine tasks like cleaning, watering and polishing, and indeed we do, but one of the satisfactions of our lifestyle is that things do have to be done by hand. To continue having water and gas to use, tanks have to be refilled or bottles bought. I believe that one of the reasons that stress levels are so much lower and moods brighter is because there is this stream of routine jobs, the completion of which leads to a sense of mastery of one's life. Yes it can be a worry if the timings don't quite work out, and water has to be used sparingly for a few hours, but nobody dies, and it's soon back to normal.

Saturday 28 April

We woke to a glorious morning. I spun the boat in a huge half circle on Tixall Wide, and we headed back to Great Haywood yet again. Sheila had done yet more washing, so we stopped on the water point. We won't be able to do much washing in dry dock, so Sheila's aim is to get as up to date as possible beforehand. I had time to pop into the village to get a paper, and got back before the tank had filled.

We went on about half way to Stone, to Weston, a village we've often passed through, like Acton Trussell, but never stopped there. It proves to be a lovely spot.

A couple of days ago, I'd had a request from the guy who does the Joe Blogs site (http://mrjoeblogs.blogspot.com/) to do an interview about this site for his. I took a bit of time to do that, and then we went for a walk. I was planning to catch up with the blog when we got back, but it was not to be.

Firstly, whilst strolling through the village, we succumbed to the temptation to stop for a pint at the excellent pub on the village green, the Woolpack. When we got back to the boat, a little later than intended, we were approached by the people from Golden Eagle, the boat moored in front of us. Tug and Kirsty Wilson live aboard, and Tug, an ex-Royal Marine, works as a freelance railway signalling tester.

They explained that they had defrosted too much meat, and would we help them eat it after they'd barbecued it. Meanwhile, would we like a drink. Sheila went into Sanity to get a shower, while I joined them on the towpath. A merry evening ensued, featuring cider, red wine, pork, beef, rice salad, and a lot of good natured banter and gossip. It's just typical of the cut that this sort of thing happens. We didn't know these people from Adam and Eve, though we'd seen their boat about from time to time, but yet another friendship was forged tonight.

The only downside is that I've had to do three days blog rather than two just now, but it's a small price to pay. I'll try and keep up to date next week, but the demands of docking and blacking the boat may get in the way. Meantime. there's an account of the last time we did it (also at Stone) on the main website here.