Steadily on up the Shroppie

27th & 28th February

We got away to a prompt start on Friday, doing some very pleasant boating on a day which was mild out of the wind, but quite chilly in it, typical early Spring, in fact. It took around 45 minutes to get to Norbury Junction, where we had to queue for a little time for one of the water points. Once on there, we soon refilled the tank.

I took some recycling round to the bins and investigated the chandlery for a vee shaped bow fender. The one I made has proved unsatisfactory: I know what the problem is, but it means half dismantling it to sort it, which is going to take a bit of time, especially as my right shoulder has been playing up ever since I made the wretched thing.

It looks like we'll have to wait until Nantwich to get a replacement. I plan then to leave that one on Sanity and reconstruct the problem one for Sanity Again.

We chugged on towards Market Drayton, which I had over optimistically predicted we might reach that night. In fact even Goldstone Wharf proved to be too far in a wind which was getting ever more penetrating, so we stopped on some rather shallow SUCS moorings just after Knighton, beyond Bridge 47.

No sooner had we settled down to make lunch than John Jackson in Roach appeared coming towards us from the North. I hailed him, and asked about either Excel or PureHeat. He had neither, but did have some Taybrite, so I got four bags of that which should keep us going for a couple of weeks at least.

Having sorted the coal to my satisfaction after lunch, we took a bit of time to do a thorough floor sweep. It gets done pretty well every day at the moment, as it's impossible to keep mud from boots off it whilst we are boating, but this time we took more time to get into all the corners and really clean the place up.

Towards the end of the day, we heard a droning sound gradually getting louder and had one of those on and off conversations about whether it was a plane or a boat. It turned out to be a boat dragging one of the worst breaking washes I've ever seen on the cut:


Note that this wasn't a hire boat or a day boat as we first thought. It was a privateer out of Norbury Junction, and they really should have known better. It's not even as if such engine revs makes the boat go any faster. They slowed down as soon as they saw my camera come out, so the pic is after they'd throttled back.

Yesterday we made another good start. Our habit of sleeping with the over bed Houdini a little open means that on fine mornings we get the benefit of the bird song and the early light, making it quite easy to contemplate getting up and doing some boating.

Down Tyrley Locks we went and into Market Drayton. Seyella was on the water point, and I had a few words with Geoff as we went by. He told me that I had missed Greygal: drat! Seyella was planning to do the same as us, and move on to the top of Adderley for the night. They went off whilst we were lunching before shopping, but when in due course we got to Adderley, they weren't there.

We had a bit of fun trying to find an adequate T-mobile signal, but in the end gave up after repositioning the boat once, and I just put a brief holding post up until we could get this one sorted.

Later in the afternoon, Mike and Jo in Sarah Kate came up the flight and tied near us. Mike told me that they had seen Seyella at the bottom of the flight. The dreaded Shroppie ledge is very wide on the moorings at the top, and they hadn't been able to get close enough in to let the dog off.

Mike and Jo invited us in for a drink before dinner, so we had a very pleasant session with them, catching up from when we last saw them. Normally we make contact during the Crick Show, when we are working on the Braidbar stand, and Mike is on Phil Speight's.

I'd popped a frozen block of veggie curry in the oven before we went, so we were able to settle down in the saloon when we came back whilst the rice cooked, and then have an easy meal and an early night.

I'll cover today's boating in the regular post tomorrow: we're at the excellent Coole Pilate moorings now, with just a GPRS connection, but adequate to the purpose.