Heading back to Rugeley

4th & 5th August

After I'd posted last time, we discovered a down side to the mooring just to the north of Acton Trussell. I don't know whether there was a herd of cows nearby, or whether it was just the consequence of continuing warm, damp weather, but we were plagued by flies that evening, and the fly swat had to be wielded with skill and vigour to keep them under control. It didn't help that the weather took on a pattern of showers with quite pleasant interludes, so that we kept opening the bow doors and side hatches and then closing them again after a new battalion of flies had entered.

We used to use one of those electric tennis racket type high tech fly swats, but in the confines of the boat it seemed quite large and clumsy, and a 50p basic fly swat from Aldi now meets our needs. It helps to know that flies can't see behind them, so the trick is to bring the swat down through that blind spot.

We made a prompt start yesterday morning in pleasant enough weather and were soon working down Deptmore Lock. Out of curiosity, I timed us through the lock, which took ten minutes from start to finish, as opposed to the fifty it had taken coming the other way on a busy Saturday.

Although the water tank was still half full, we decided to water again at Milford Wharf, so as to save complex manoeuvring at Great Haywood. Accordingly, we tied once more on the rather broken bank next to the underpass beneath the West Coast Main Line. Having got Sanity settled, I got the hose out and handed it to Sheila who was standing on the bank. As she turned round, we both realised what was missing from the scene. The water point which we had used just three days before was no longer there; indeed it was hard to tell where it had been, since the area beneath its former location was covered in woodchip.

To be fair, it was always a slightly odd water point, consisting as it did of a tap inside an ammunition box fixed to the stone facing of the railway embankment and secured shut with a length of chain and a BW padlock. There was, however, a sign saying "Mooring for water point only" together with another pleading with dog owners not to let their animals foul the area. Both of these signs have also disappeared, to be replaced by quantities of dog poo.

I'd always assumed that the tap was primarily for the benefit of the Milford Wharf moorers; perhaps they are to have water supplied directly to the moorings in future.

Disappointed and just a little surprised, we plodded on over the Sow aqueduct and down Tixall Lock. Tixall Wide had ample choice of mooring, again in marked contrast to the weekend before. As soon as we'd tied up, Sheila found herself engaged in technical discussions with two women from other boats about her port hole doilies and the TripleFlex synthetic whalebone with which we mount them in the portholes.

It was one of those off and on discussions where people went away and told their friends and the friends then showed up at the side hatches with further questions. It was just about petering out when Jo and then Keith from Hadar showed up for a natter. We'd been discussing whether the boat we could see arriving further back down the wide was Hadar so we were not entirely surprised when they turned up.

Since it kept trying to rain on us, we retreated to the cabin for cups of coffee and a thorough catching up session. They'd had a good Canalway Cavalcade, and told us that they are likely to be trading on the Leicester Section next winter.

After they'd gone I popped into Great Haywood for a newspaper and some pasties to eke out the bread supply from the day before.

Since the weather continued damp, we had another afternoon of lurking in the cabin. Sheila is still producing crochet as fast as she can, and we did some more work on the quiz for the Braidbar Owners' weekend. It's very nearly finished; the main need now is to sort out the images for the picture round.

I've also decided not to use a question I was quite looking forward to, as I couldn't find independent verification of the answer from any of my sources. The question was going to be "If the M in MG stands for Morris, what does the R in PRM stand for?"

I'll leave this one as an exercise for the reader.

We made an early start today as we now needed to water at Great Haywood and then work down Haywood and Colwich locks before they got busy. Sheila steered along the rump of the Staffs and Worcs while I ate breakfast and then took over on the helm. Fortunately, it was a flat calm and since it was not yet seven o'clock there were no gongoozlers about. Under these circumstances I did a perfect reverse turn onto the water point. Sheila ate her breakfast while the tank was filling, and I got rid of the rubbish and recycling.

Then we went merrily on, having Haywood to ourselves and crossing with an Anglo Welsh hire boat at Colwich. We've tied just beyond bridge 69 between Wolseley Bridge and Rugeley and had finished the day's boating just after half nine. The batteries not being fully charged, we ran a wash load straightaway whilst I checked for local geocaches.

There was one back toward Wolseley Bridge, so once the socks were washed we set off to find it. As a result we found a curious brick tunnel with a blind end between the river and the canal. It's not mentioned in any of the guides as far as I know, and it's hard to know what can have been its original purpose.

Having succeeded in finding the cache, we carried on back to Wolseley Bridge and then walked up the road away from the canal and river to the service station which is also a Post Office and general store. There we were able to buy a copy of The Independent before heading back to Sanity to lunch off some baguettes I had baked earlier.

The weather has steadily improved this afternoon and is now very pleasant. It took a real effort of will to come in from dozing on the bow to write this blog post.