Heading North to Stone

31st August & 1st September

Yesterday we permitted ourselves a lazy start for once (well, I was steering). Setting off at nine, we chugged gently through to Tixall Wide, followed by John and Nev on Waimaru. We'd had an excellent evening with them the night before, finishing quite late, despite my unmannerly yawns (I'm still catching up on lost sleep, I think).

John had originally planned to spend the night at Great Haywood, but without much difficulty was persuaded to change this to Tixall, in exchange for a return meal with us. Waimaru still needed to go to Haywood to water, but of course it's no great problem to wind in the junction, and return to Tixall, where winding is certainly not a challenge (unless you try to do it with too much forward way on initially ;-} ).

After we'd tied Sanity in a convenient spot on a fairly busy towpath, we set off to walk to Great Haywood, so as to visit the farm shop there to buy bread and some bits and bobs for the evening to come. We got there just as Waimaru was tying up at the water point. After doing our marketing, we found them still there, and joined them for a cup of coffee and a lift back to the Wide.

This took a while; Waimaru's tank must have been very low on water. Back at Tixall, John moored near Umpshire, the boat of Gail and Stewart whom we all know from our OwnerShip's days, and we had a bit of a natter with them before going back to Sanity for lunch.

The weather became very damp and disappointing; it had been very misty first thing, and now settled down to rain through the mist with such determination that we dropped the cratch cover and lit the stove. This made the boat too hot, of course – it's the everlasting problem at this time of year, especially when wet weather stops you from opening the side hatches and the slide to let some of the spare heat out, thus drying the boat.

It made for a quiet afternoon, rather dozy and dopey, though I did manage to find the energy to write a couple of email letters to the editors of Waterways World and Canal Boat (on different topics). It'll be fun to see if I can get them published in the two mags in the same month.

Nev and John duly joined us for dinner. I used one of the meals Al Moore had kindly frozen down for us at the wrg camp: a beef stew to which I added some butternut squash and served with new potatoes and summer cabbage with coriander seeds.

Dessert was an apple and blackberry tart we'd bought at the farm shop, with home made yogurt, as I objected to paying nearly three quid for a 100 gram pot of crème fraiche at the shop.

Today we had a longer haul to Stone; at least three and a half hours according to the books, and likely to be rather more at this time of year. Sheila was in charge, so we set off at 7.30 (I swear that woman's ancestry features Captain Bligh in it somewhere, she's so good in a boat.)

Despite the early hour, John and Nev appeared to wave us off, as did Chris Webber on Eulalie and John and Christine on Thornbury. The morning couldn't have been more different from the day before. It was sunny and mild, and it was a joy to be boating.

We went smoothly through the junction, and soon arrived at Hoo Mill Lock. From there up to Stone we were sharing the cut with a variety of other craft, privateers, hire boats, even a tug and hopper seemingly in private ownership, which its rather taciturn skipper said he was taking to Huddersfield.

He was behind us initially, but we loosed him by between Weston and Sandon locks. He planned to be at Standedge by Friday, but admitted that that was a bit ambitious for a single hander.

One of the reasons for making an early start is that there's not a lot of mooring at Stone, surprisingly for such a deservedly popular spot, and getting there at the end of the morning is a good strategy. As it turned out, it took us all of five hours, what with one thing and another, but we were still able to get a decent spot. They have extended the visitor mooring since we last came this way around twelve months ago, but there's still not a lot of it.

It's been raining on and off all afternoon, but we managed to do a bit of shopping between the heavy showers, and have been lurking in the boat doing various internet related jobs the rest of the time.

Tomorrow we should have an easier day going up to Barlaston, where there's lots of mooring, what with those in the village and the ones by the Wedgwood factory, so not such a crack of dawn start, methinks. (Well, I'm in charge again.)