Back on the canals

12 July

It's been over a month since we were last on the main canal system, since we came through Leicester, in fact. This morning we left Sawley on a day that looked threatening, but in fact improved substantially as it went on.

Sheila had soon steered Sanity through the open Sawley Flood Lock, where the water levels were now well down, below the flood marker strip all together. It's always longer than we remember, the final length of the Trent from there to Derwent Mouth, but it was soon navigated, and we approached the three way junction: unnavigable Derwent to the right, final spur of the navigable Trent to the left, and the amazingly narrow looking Trent and Mersey Canal straight ahead.

Soon we arrived at Derwent Mouth Lock, and worked up off the river level onto the cut that leads to Shardlow. It's good to see that they have reopened the mooring on the offside by the pubs. For a while, there was this ridiculous belief on BW's part that erecting a low fence, to stop over enthusiastic customers of those establishments from wandering off the edge, meant that it was no longer safe for boats to tie there.

Since Shardlow is not well provided with mooring, and since it is an enduringly popular spot to stop (deservedly so) this was an especially daft decision. No matter, as I say, things have been sorted out, and you can now tie on that section for 48 hours.

We were joined in Shardlow Lock by one of the many Canaltimes we've seen about all day, Sawley being one of their major bases. This crew was an expert example of the breed, in their seventh year of boating with the company, so were just as skilled in their boat handling as the majority of privateers that we meet.

We chugged gently on, through Aston and Weston Locks, swapping partners between them as we went. It's a bit confusing for ageing continuous cruisers like ourselves that there are two Astons and two Westons on the T&M, one pair in Staffs and these ones in Derbyshire. It's hard enough to keep track of where we found what feature of the system, without there being places not too far apart called the exact same thing.

We've now arrived at Swarkestone, and managed to find a space on the visitor moorings above the lock, though it's very busy here. There are some towpath moorings just the other side of the narrows, so we wouldn't have been too inconvenienced if we'd had to go on just a little further.

We've spent the afternoon in a variety of improving activities.

First we went for a walk along the towpath and found a simple geocache.

Then I loafed and dozed whilst Sheila hunted about on the net, filling in all the answers we couldn't do in yesterday's Independent giant general knowledge crossword.

Finally, I cut Sheila's hair again. I'm beginning to get the hang of it, so that it doesn't just look as if she'd had an alarmimg encounter with a reaping machine, but I've got some way to go before I can look at it with any sense of achievement. It didn't help that we had a misunderstanding about just how much of her external pinna could be described as the "earlobe", but, fortunately, her hair grows quite quickly.

Tomorrow, we have a short run to Willington, and the chance to look for more caches, before heading into the great metropolis of Burton on Trent once more.