Apart from starting just a bit later than planned, things went well this morning, Sheila steering and me locking down through 9 locks to stop on the visitor moorings between 11 and 12 just after ten. I had been rather dreading going down lock 10, scene of near disaster last time we were this way, but all went off no bother today. We now always leave the steerer on the boat, using the cabin shaft to hold the stern forward of the cill.
Despite appearing to be Armco piling where we moored, the Shroppie ledge was much in evidence, with the boat a good couple of feet out from the side.
We had a coffee and went shopping, getting back in time for lunch. Afterwards, though, the see-sawing and grinding got really tedious (we'd not been able to put a spring out) so we decided to carry on down. In the end, we went all the way to below the bottom lock, where we found a number of other refugees. There were spaces on VMs further up, but all the ledge free ones were taken. There's a bit of ledge here, but nothing our go-kart tyre fenders can't handle.
After a pause to recover, we walked back up to visit Audlem Mill craft centre. Some time ago, Sheila had been told that the centre was selling Terylene crochet cotton and she wanted to try some, but none was in view today. I settled for buying a copy of next month's Canal Boat and we tottered back to the boat.
We've got almost decent signals here on both 3 and Vodafone, so can get some work done again.
Tomorrow, on to Nantwich, possibly for a couple of days. We plan to have a serious shop at Morrisons there, taking a taxi back to the boat.
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