A cunning change to the cunning plan

One minor mystery of the cut – how come you can moor apparently in the middle of nowhere, like where we were last night, and, all day and all evening, joggers come pounding past? I mean, obviously, there must be housing nearer than you think, but it’s really quite unusual not to see joggers and dog walkers, wherever you tie.

Ah well, no matter. We had a very peaceful night and woke in good time this morning, such that we were on our way by 7.45. It had stopped raining, but was still very windy, something that’s going to be an issue for a couple of weeks, seemingly. Sheila steered and reported that the wind was tedious but not impossible, especially as it was on the bow for much of the time. We had a good run to Wheaton Aston, locked down and went on the water point.

Whilst the tank was filling, only moderately quickly, we considered our options in the light of the forecast for a storm on Wednesday with the high winds continuing into Thursday. We were running two days ahead of the draft cruising schedule, which only estimates two hours cruising per day. If we carried on to Gnosall today and to Market Drayton tomorrow (the last really fine day this month, it seems) we’d be able to take a couple of days out at Drayton and still be ahead of schedule.

So that was decided upon, as Stanley Holloway would say. We made it to Gnosall just on noon and found a good spot on the first visitor moorings after the tunnel, just a bit before the road bridge. As regular readers will recall, Gnosall is short for Gnosignall, though there’s now a decent 3 connection but still no Vodafone.

We’ve walked up into the village to get some supplies, partly to make sure we’ve got enough for lunch tomorrow and partly just to top up, the Co-op here being nearer (and a downhill walk back to the boat) than Morrisons in Drayton. Obviously, we’ll do some serious shopping there over the next couple of days as well.

Location:Gnosall