Walking in circles can be fun

22nd & 23rd February

Friday morning arrived with a phenomenal amount of wind, causing us to rethink our plan to move to Gnosall – the Shelmore embankment is no place to be in a strong cross wind. The visitor moorings were still half empty, so we didn't feel too guilty about staying an extra day.

In order to avoid a totally lazy day, we explored a circular walk after lunch, starting just across the road from the boatyard. We walked across some fields to a very minor road, eventually turning off onto a bridle way which brought us round to the road which crosses the canal via the High Bridge over Grub Street cutting. Then it was a case of walking back along the towpath to the junction. It took us about an hour all told, just right for a postprandial stroll.

Apart from that it was a pretty quiet day, really, except for the noise of the wind. The major intellectual exercise was composing a rejoinder to Adrian Stott's piece in the latest Waterways World, wherein he argues for continuous cruisers being charged an additional £1500 per annum, to make up for the extra use they make of water points and the like. We've submitted it to WW as a letter to the editor – if they don't use it, I'll post it here in due course.

Today we made a prompt start – the heating was set to come on at seven, and we were boating by about 8.15. It was a calm but cloudy morning, but we knew that the wind was due to get up again later, hence the unusual alacrity in getting going.

It's about than an hour's boating from Norbury to Gnosall, so by 9.30 we were on the water point topping up the tank. There's no Vodafone signal in this village whatsoever that I can find, so we've had to put the Orange Pay As You Go SIM in the phone in order to liaise with Elanor on her way over to see us.

Once we were sorted with a mooring and the washing machine had finished doing its thing, we took a walk to get some supplies and to remind ourselves of the layout here. There are actually two villages – the canal is at Gnosall Heath, and Gnosall proper is about a mile away, so quite walkable.

There's a decent range of basic shops at Gnosall Heath, and a few more plus a Post Office at Gnosall. You can walk along the road from one to t'other, or there's a footpath along an old railway embankment to Bridge 35A, enabling another circular walk to be made of it.

As I write this the wind has indeed come up again, so we made the right decisions (makes a change). The forecast is for a calm day on Monday, but windy again Tuesday and Wednesday, so it looks like we'll move on Monday and then sit tight again for a couple of days.