A shoppping stop in Stone

5th & 6th November

Yesterday was a cool, grey day; we plodded steadily to Stone from what had been an excellent mooring near Salt. We'd originally feared that the proximity of the railway would make for a disturbed night, but in fact it wasn't a problem. I'd certainly use that mooring again; it breaks up the Great Haywood to Stone run, which otherwise is just a bit uncomfortable to do in a half day.

It wasn't a problem yesterday, far from it, but Stone can be very busy in the summer, and arriving at lunchtime or late afternoon is really taking a gamble on getting a spot.

As it turned out, we had no such trouble this time. There were a number of lurkers just off the end of the moorings, but the restricted moorings were empty, except for a BW workboat, badly chained in an awkward position just into the 48 hour section, which was there when we last came this way a month ago.

We shopped, lunched and then spent the afternoon working inside the boat. It's the first time we've had a decently fast and stable internet connection for quite a while, so there was lots of stuff to do that we'd been holding back on. Sheila in particular had all her month end finance stuff to do (not that that brings much joy these days [:(] ) and I had various odd bits and bobs to look up.

This is the first year for a bit we've been in a town for Bonfire Night – we couldn't in fact see much action, and some kids were charging up and down the towpath late on, but otherwise we had no problems. In fact we got a good night's sleep.

Today we made a leisurely start, wandering round to the Morrison's again to carry on restocking, then back to the boat for coffee before finding a couple of geocaches in a dog walking area to the north of the town.

We came back via Stone Boat Building, as I needed to get the supplies for doing the next oil change. They'd only got one can of my preferred oil, and didn't have the filter in stock, but both should be in tomorrow.

This afternoon we've been doing internet stuff again, and reading the papers, which are full of analysis of the victory of Barack Obama, of course. We can only hope he is able to deliver at least some of the change he's promised; at least starting from as far down as the USA's stock is on all fronts at the moment, it could be argued that the only way is up. Talking of the internet, one interesting additional feature on the BW site is a page where you can log unlicensed boats you've spotted, which at least gives some sense of getting your own back on those who aren't paying their share. Thanks to Andrew Denny for drawing our attention to it.

We plan to water and wind tomorrow, but haven't decided whether to leave Stone then or stay until Saturday, when the forecast threatens more wind. Meantime, we'll continue to loaf about, whilst occasionally giving moral support by phone to Elanor about her mattress (watch this space!)