18th & 19th October
After posting my last entry, I realised I'd forgotten to mention that whilst passing though Hopwas, we'd seen fellow blogger Mike Moorse on his boat Guelrose, which he keeps at the end of his garden, lucky chap. They were just setting off to go the other way, and in fact we've just had another encounter with him here in Fradley, of which more anon.
We had a relaxed start yesterday, on a very windy morning. It was my turn to steer, which wasn't necessarily good news as we planned to go into Fazeley Mill Marina for a pump out, and that involves reversing in from a narrow canal through an equally narrow entrance.
First question was, where to buy a paper? Should I hold things up by slogging back to Sainsbury's, or should we wait until Fazeley and get one from the Tesco Express at the cross roads there. We decided on the latter, so went straight off to the junction and down to the marina, which is on the Birmingham and Fazeley.
There was, as it turned out, no wind there, the whole section being sheltered by trees, but the rather shallow sides of the canal nonetheless ensured that it was hard work manoeuvring. We bought a token to do a self pump out, and then bought some more solid fuel, another new type to us, Multiheat.
It looks a lot like PureHeat, and seems to burn quite well. The Supertherm is OK, but rather slow and cool burning. Fine at the moment, but I'm not sure how it will be when the weather gets really cold.
On the way back we stopped just before the junction to have a coffee, and I trotted round to the Tesco. They had a loaf of bread, all right, but no Independent. It's never been a terribly well stocked shop, even before Tesco took it over.
After coffee, we retraced our tracks to the Sutton Road Bridge mooring, where we stopped long enough for me to go and buy a paper, and for Sheila to find a fallen ash bough and claim it for our firewood store.
Then it was merrily on to Hopwas for the night, arriving there just before lunchtime. In the afternoon, we sorted the wood and coal on the roof, cutting the former up and putting it in our bread tray, and stacking the latter in the tarpaulin we bought at Halford's the other day.
The tarp proves to be rather larger than we really need, but still – you can always fold up a tarp that's too large, but you certainly can't stretch one that's just a foot too small. I think I'll have to make up some strops to tie it down though – some of the Victory Black, with an eye splice in one end and a back splice in the other should do the trick, like a pair of miniature mooring lines.
I spent a bit more time playing with the GPS and exploring what Mac software there is for it on the net. I also began to learn more about the sport of Geocaching that sounds as if it has distinctly amusing possibilities.
Basically it involves using the GPS to find a cache that someone else has hidden at co-ordinates they then post on one of the websites dedicated to the sport. When you've found it, you sign the log book that's been left in there, and take a photo of yourself with your GPS at the location.
Back at home (or boat in our case) you post the fact that you've succeeded on the website.
Today we made a promptish start. It was quite chilly first thing, and for the second morning in a row, the Eberspacher agreed to start without trouble; it obviously knows it's on probation.
Sheila steered to Fradley, where there was no space before the junction, so we worked down Junction Lock and found room on the visitor mooring below. The internet connection is very slow here still. When I met Mike just now, he told me that he'd been unable to get one at all, so we must be grateful for small mercies, I guess.
It turns out he's just getting into Geocaching as well, so we were able to have a bit of chat about local ones. It sounds like there are enough to give us a decent start; I'll keep this blog posted with the results of our efforts.
Tomorrow we go back to above Bagnall, hopefully, spending a few days there before going on a longer cruise, maybe to Stone.
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