There's not an Offley lot...

... of mobile signal at Offley, hence no blog yesterday. We'd had a good run there from Little Onn after a very quiet night – once the farmer had stopped driving large bits of plant about. We managed to get enough connection to let the family know we were virtually off grid and had an exchange of texts with them.

We tried a little walk along the towpath and back across the fields, but the footpath for the second half had disappeared, necessitating a return along the canal. No matter, we rewarded ourselves with a drink at The Anchor. It's no longer true that you can't get food at the Anchor. There's a little sign up that says "Sandwiches" – but the beer still comes in a jug and was very good. They even do lager, as long as it's Carling.

After another peaceful night, we set out at eight this morning and had a good run to Goldstone Wharf, taking just a couple of hours. We know that the Wharf Inn here does food so we're going to eat out tonight. This afternoon, we sussed out another possible walk which we actually managed to find. I have the OS app on the iPad now which works well in these situations. It's only 79p to download a 1:50,000 tile, the scale of the red covered Explorer maps.

The start of the path took a bit of hunting for, but then it was quite well way marked. The last bit, into Cheswardine village, went along the road. We'd had thoughts about returning to Goldstone on this road, but our brief exposure to rural driving Shropshire style persuaded us that our chances of survival would be much better back across the fields.

Since then we've been having a quiet afternoon, letting our feet cool down. It's the longest walk Sheila's done since her op. It's not so much the op site recovering now, although her foot still gets a bit swollen, it's about regaining general fitness after reduced exercise for half the summer.

Tomorrow, on through Woodseaves cutting, down Tyrley locks and into Market Drayton for some serious restocking. We're over half way to Nantwich here, so just a few more days will see us off the Shroppie.