A short day's run in the sun

We’ve largely been sleeping better since leaving the Caldon, apart from the night before last; last night we both went straight through and woke at six ready for almost anything.

In practice what we did was to get some breakfast and then cruise round to the service block to fill up with water. The pressure was really good for most of the time, but there were no mobile signals much so we couldn’t catch up on emails as we’d planned.

No matter, it was a lovely day for doing not a lot. Just as we were nearly full, another boat arrived to use the second tap and the pressure disappeared; it looks like the water point nearest the self pump out cabinet gets first dibs at the water. Apparently the self pump out was U/S yet again; CRT don’t seem to be any keener than BW at keeping them in repair.

Mind you, thinking about it, an unsupervised self pump out is probably on a hiding to nothing anyway, what with the card readers going temperamental and people putting the wrong stuff down their toilets. I believe that Robin Evans didn’t like them and I would not be at all surprised if they go the way of the washing machines and tumble driers which have also proved hopelessly uneconomic to maintain.

Having got the tank mostly full we set off again; sorry, Andy, missed your toot as we passed under the bridge, too busy sweating on the bend, I guess! We didn’t go far, mooring again beyond the Stanley Arms to walk up into Barnton for some bits of shopping.

The plan after that had been to do both tunnels and tie somewhere in the countryside, but to our amazement the moorings in the pool between the tunnels were completely unoccupied, so we stopped, having been moving for all of an hour in total.

It’s idyllic here on a day like this, better than anything pretty well anywhere on the system – Caldon Canal? You can keep it, I’ll have this end of the T&M any day. And no problems with mobile signals, what's more.

After a coffee, Sheila walked back up into Barnton (ironically, it’s an easier walk from here than over the footbridge and up the hill) and managed to get a 2pm appointment for a hair cut at a new looking place near the butchers. She’s very pleased with the outcome; it’s not as good as Bill Wood has done for her in the past, but very acceptable and removes the growing similarity to a Bearded Collie, which was beginning to worry her, I think.

Since then we’ve been unashamedly loafing; there’s plenty of room in the shade of some trees for our folding chairs.

Tomorrow we’ll use the eight o’clock slot for going through Saltersford and try to get a mooring on the recently repaired section near Dutton Stop.