North to Gailey

1st & 2nd March

To carry on from where I left off, the sausages were wonderful! In my experience, sausages are often disappointing, even so-called premium ones, but these came out of the pan intact, well browned and were bursting with meat. Two each were quite sufficient for us, eaten with crusty bread and some braised onion and white cabbage. Full marks to the Kinver butchers.

We spent Saturday morning boating steadily back up the Staffs and Worcs, calling at Swindon again to shop and stopping by Wombourne Bridge to eat lunch.

On the way we did our community spirited bit by reporting a tree that had come down across the towpath just below Rocky Lock. The cut was in general full of bits of branch and loads of leaves – it's surprising how many survive through the winter to come down in the spring gales.

Possibly as a result of all this detritus in the water, we had a bit of a problem at Hicksford lock. One of the bottom gates refused to close up to its cill, so I reversed Sanity back down the lock and prodded around along the cill with a boat hook. After a couple of goes, the gate consented to close properly; I'm not sure whether it was the prodding, or just all the prop wash from manoeuvring the boat around that did the trick, but anyway, it worked.

By early afternoon we were at the top of the Bratch; we'd expected it to be busy with gongoozlers, but there were only two couples about – I bet Foxton was busier than that yesterday and today.

Today we made an earlyish start, getting away by 8.15, as we wanted to get right through the dodgy area around Aldersley/Autherley before stopping for the night. In addition, the forecast was OK for today, but is less good for tomorrow, so it made sense to boat whilst the sun shone.

By 10.30 on a bright but very breezy day, we had reached Compton, where we stopped for a coffee and to get a few stores. Sheila stayed on anchor watch whilst I shopped, so that we could get a wash load started.

By 11 we'd had coffee and the wash cycle had finished heating, and we set off again. Compton Lock is the last on the climb up to the summit pound – after Gailey it's all downhill to Great Haywood.

In fact as usual the so-called bandit country looked no more threatening than any other suburban stretch. BW are doing a major towpath refurbishment through the Pendeford Rockin', the narrow cutting through a sandstone outcrop just north of the junction. Possibly this is an early sign of the kind of tidying up that bringing the IWA National Festival to an area can stimulate.

By 12.30 we'd stopped at the Hope and Anchor at Coven to eat lunch. That took us up to 1.30, when we set off again, arriving at Gailey by 3.15. In view of the cold snap that's been forecast, we thought we'd better get some wood sawn up for the Squirrel, so one last effort was made before we could relax.

Tonight we are going to have the other half of the sausages, with mash this time, as I bought some spuds at Compton. Tomorrow we may sit tight if the weather is bad, or else we'll go on to Acton Trussell.