Cold boating on a busy week

24th & 25th October

Wednesday was a seriously frosty morning, so we made a lazy start and finally got boating at 9.30. Deptmore Lock was particularly busy – you can tell that it’s half term and that we were on one of the most popular cruising routes in the form of the Four Counties Ring.

We got to Tixall Wide by 11.40, and I left Sheila mooring the boat – traffic notwithstanding, there were several gaps – whilst I walked the ten minutes into Great Haywood for a paper and bread.

After lunch, we realised that I’d forgotten to take two letters waiting for the post, so we both went back, taking the opportunity to walk down the visitor moorings to Haywood Lock. As last week, they were remarkably quiet, considering the number of boats passing by.

In view of the continuing cold weather, we did the follow up clothes sort, setting us up for the winter. This involves putting away the short sleeved shirts and pairs of shorts that had been in the wash when we did the first stage, and getting out gloves, warm hats and the quilted ski jackets.

After this we had a quiet afternoon. Elanor came by for a chat in the evening, having driven up from her work at Rugeley and then walked along from Great Haywood.

Today we wanted to get to Stone, not a huge day’s run, but we needed to water first, and the mooring in Stone isn’t abundant, so getting there in good time is a good idea. We couldn’t assume it would be as quiet as Great Haywood.

This meant an early start, and it was hard work getting out of bed when the alarm went at 7. It was still dark, and quite cold, the fire having gone out overnight. Nonetheless, we managed to be on our way by 8.15, following a Black Prince boat round to the junction and onto the water point.

They finished watering just before us, so we followed them up Hoo Mill Lock. We in turn were followed by Mercury, whose crew we’d briefly met at the do in Alrewas Village Hall the other weekend.

This turned into a steady chug, catching the BP boat up at each lock, and being caught up in turn by Mercury. It stayed quite cold, especially for the steerer, and I was glad that we’d got the ski jackets out. At Sandon there was a further delay – it transpired that when he boat ahead of the BP tried to leave the lock, it found it had managed to get its stern line caught in the bottom gates, so the lock had to be partially emptied again to release it.

In any event, we all rolled up at Stone by around 1.30. We found a decent space on the visitor mooring below the lock, and with a bit of juggling Mercury was able to squeeze in behind.

After a late lunch we did some shopping, and settled down to get the boat warm again for the evening. The fruit wood we’re burning at the moment is a hot wood, and very aromatic, but quite hard to get going.