Meeting Peter and on to Tixall

29th & 30th July

The plan yesterday was to make an early start, as we'd estimated three hours from our overnight mooring to the shopping mooring in Rugeley, and we wanted to get there at around ten o' clock. Peter Mason planned to be with us at midday, which suited us well as we prefer not to overnight in the centre of that town.

None of this worked out quite as planned, but it all turned out for the best in the end. We had severely overestimated the time needed to get from Handsacre to Rugeley, so we made a halt on the water point between Hawkesyard Hall and the Ash Tree to top up the water tank. We still got to Rugeley in very good time but as usual there was plenty of room on the visitor moorings at that time of day.

We had a relaxed shop in Wilkinson's and Morrison's and were back on the boat by half ten. We put all the shopping away and settled to wait for Peter to show up. A couple of texts from him indicated firstly that he was a little later leaving Braidbar than planned and then that heavy traffic was slowing him down. In the event it was more like half one before he was with us.

We had a most excellent and useful meeting, and I'll try and give the highlights of it on the Building Sanity Again blog tomorrow. Peter didn't leave us until half five, by which time it felt too late to move on. Town centre moorings do not feel as threatening in the middle of the holiday season, when they are very busy. Our only concern was that today's cruising involved those major pinch points of the narrow canals, Colwich and Haywood Locks.

We dealt with this by making a flying start this morning. Sheila washed, dressed and started boating whilst I made a cup of tea, performed my own ablutions and ate breakfast. We then swapped over on the tiller so that Sheila could finish sorting herself out for the day and get her breakfast.

We made steady progress, although it was apparent that we had done well to sit tight last night, as all the places that we would have considered for a rural mooring were completely full. We got to Colwich lock at half seven and followed another boat up. At Great Haywood, once Sanity was rising in the lock, I nipped off to get a paper, there being no lack of assistance for Sheila with the lock since there was now a boat following us and one waiting to come down.

I caught up with Sanity at the junction bridge, and we were able to find a space on Tixall Wide at around ten. In fact we could have afforded to have arrived a little later, as by lunch time many of the other boats had moved off.

We've had a busy day. The engine hours counter was showing 6999, so after a leisurely coffee to allow the engine to cool, Sheila did a major service with my advice, thus reducing the strain on my slowly recovering shoulder. The main difficulty here was the discovery that Shobnall Chandlery had sold us the wrong fuel filter. Fortunately, Sheila had been able to remove the old one without damaging it so we just put it back on, but we still had the joy of bleeding it.

After lunch, we needed to complete an application form for my NHS pension. The only problem with this was that we discovered we needed a witness to my signature, and as a potential beneficiary, Sheila could not perform this office. We had a walk along all the moorings at Tixall and in Great Haywood without finding anyone we knew. This is, of course, about the first time in the last fortnight we've not bumped into an acquaintance.

In the end we went into the Anglo Welsh office where they know us as customers and one of the staff there was kind enough to oblige. The boating community is indeed a wonderful thing.

Back at the boat Sheila took photocopies of everything, sealed the application in its envelope and walked back to Great Haywood yet again to put it in the post. I cleaned up the engine room and put everything tidily away whilst she was gone. She duly came plodding back looking rather grim faced; the Post Office here chooses to have a half day on Thursdays.

No wonder the Royal Mail struggles to match its commercial competitors; none of them would consider for a moment being unavailable in the middle of the working week.

We are now in the happy position of having some time to kill, so we'll stay here tomorrow, I'll do the walk into Great Haywood this time and we'll get this application on its way.