Thursday 13 August 2015

Stone me, a mooring space!

First off, the Perseid meteors. We normally go to bed quite early, around half nine so as to be tucked up by ten, and when we looked out before doing so last night, it was still too bright for meteor spotting. So we got ready for bed, popped our dressing gowns on and went out into the well deck in the balmy evening. It was still a bit light, but we waited patiently and gradually things got darker.

Finally, I saw my first streaking flash, then another. There was a pause before both of us spotted the next one. All in all, we probably saw five or six altogether, enough to say that we'd seen them. I can understand how such showers took on prognostic significance for earlier cultures. We are used to moving lights in the sky, from planes and satellites, but previous peoples must have thought it very strange that the apparently immutable stars were suddenly charging about.

We had a good night's kip and a lazy start, with only a couple of hours boating to do to get to Stone. The weather was quite dull and threatening, not to say boding. In fact, it's still boding pretty meaningfully now, warm and humid. It will be a relief when the rain does come. Sheila steered today, in difficult conditions of gusty wind, especially along the open fields between Burston and Aston Lock, which was a bit slow to work as a result of one of the gate paddles being jammed closed.

According to the lockwheeler of the Aston based boat that arrived as we were locking up, this is getting all too common. She said that the lock was refurbished 18 months ago and hasn't been right since.

When we got to Stone, there was no space on the moorings below Star Lock, so we went onto the water point with the intention of working up the flight and mooring at the top after we'd filled up. However, when we got up Star, lo and behold, there was a space on the 48 hour moorings just above, where the restaurant/trip boat used to moor before they relocated to outside Stone Canal Cruising.

As we were getting sorted, Andrew and Gina from La Suvera turned up on their way to do some shopping. They've moored up at the top; they are going to leave the boat at Poynton whilst they go back home and then return for the Owners' Weekend. So it was our turn to put the kettle on and provide coffee whilst we had another catch up session. The clans are gathering, hooray.

After lunch, we had a successful trip into town, shopping and making a hair appointment for tomorrow for Sheila. We'll stay here while this storm blows through and set off for Barlaston on Saturday.

2 comments:

KevinTOO said...

Now there's a mental picture that you really didn't have to paint Bruce...

Your good self doing a 'Wee Willie Winkie' impression in the dead of night... LOL

Bruce in Sanity said...

I'll have you know it's a very smart furry dressing gown and I certainly wasn't carrying a candlestick!

;)

Cheers

Bruce