An early start and onto the Shroppie again

After a restless night, we made an early start, so that I was standing at the tiller by twenty past six. We'd both managed to ablute and breakfast ourselves by the time we were approaching the Pendeford Rockin', which was passed without meeting another boat.

Possibly because I was feeling a bit dopy and underslept, I made a bit of a hash of the turn at Cut End, hitting the towpath coping with the stem of Sanity Again before I could get her round. In my defence, it is a pig of a turn in a long boat, and quite the most difficult direction to take it at that. I guess Telford was assuming that the vast majority of the traffic would be heading for Wolverhampton, so that the acuteness of the angle to go north again wouldn't be a problem.

The early start meant that we'd reached our goal for the day, the visitor moorings before Brewood between bridges 7 and 8, by ten to nine. We were a bit worried that there wouldn't be room here, but needn't have been. We'd not long been tied before the boat behind left, so we pulled back a bit, making us the first boat on the visitor mooring. Typically, the boat ahead of us then left, and another arrived and tied in such a way as to occupy two spaces with one boat. As I type this, I think he's being asked to pull back to allow another boat to get in in front of him.

It really is important at this busy time of year to give some thought to the spaces you leave between your boat and the others on the mooring.

The rest of the day has passed quietly; I've been working on my document about the IWA Festival, and Sheila has been gardening on the roof and the like. Tomorrow, we go on to Gnosall Heath, a nice mooring but lacking in Vodafone signal.