Recovered from our exertions, we go on to Market Drayton

12th & 13th February

Yesterday was another case of a seriously lazy start, as we'd decided to stay another day at the top of Adderley, enjoying the fine but cold weather in the morning. We dismantled and cut up for firewood the louvre door we hauled out of the cut some time ago.

The engine was run during the morning, allowing another washload to be processed. By the time we'd done all this, any lingering mist had burnt off, and it was becoming positively warm – warm enough, in fact, to let us sit out on the towpath, and indeed eat lunch out there.

The boat tied behind us was deploying a solar panel, and the guy off it told us that he was getting 4 amps into his batteries in these conditions, and would expect to get 6 in the summer.

This led Sheila to do some rough calculations on the basis of say £1500 for purchasing and installing such a large panel, and then saving between one and 1.5 hours engine running every day. It's very rough stuff, but the indications are that the installation would pay for itself in about 12 years.

With the high demand our fridge freezer makes on the batteries, we would never get to a point where we didn't feel the need to run the engine most days, but a boat with simpler electrics might well. I understand that the panel may be expected to have a life of around 20 years, so it is a long term but feasible proposition on economics alone, in addition to the reduction in hassle.

Note, however, that the production of solar panels itself results in a lot of CO2, so the environmental case is by no means as straightforward.

After lunch we took a walk along the towpath, just to aid digestion and enjoy the amazing weather.

Today was another slow start on a frosty but sunny morning. By 10.15 we were underway, heading for Market Drayton to shop and get water. First call was the Victoria Wharf and coal yard, where we bought five bags of Excel at £6.95 a bag. Excel isn't my favourite fuel, but it's good to have some reserve on the roof – we can expect to be using the stove for another few weeks at least, and we were down to the last two bags of PureHeat.

On the way we passed a small mystery, a boat called Hannah, whose signwriting described it as built by Les Allen but painted by Braidbar. We've never seen a boat claiming to be painted by Braidbar before – must check it out with the Braidbar Owners list.

After mooring on the 5 day moorings just north of the bypass bridge, we did the shopping, lunching and shopping routine. It's a decent walk (about 10 minutes) to the Morrisons from those moorings, much better than from the recommended town moorings further on.

All this being done, we decided to go onto the water point this afternoon, and then moor on the visitor moorings the other side of town, by the playing fields and further away from the road noise of the bypass.