More boating than planned

The Boots pharmacy problem turned out very well yesterday. When I went back, they hadn't had the afternoon delivery they'd been expecting, so couldn't supply the two missing items. When I pulled a face and pointed out that that meant us spending an extra day in Drayton, they arranged to collect the stuff from another local pharmacy.

Full marks to them, though not to the Boots supply chain.

As planned, therefore, we made a prompt start this morning, setting off at half seven and plodding past all the offside mooring between Drayton and Betton Wood cutting. After that, we made faster progress on a very pleasant morning. It clouded over from time to time, but was still definitely summer rather than autumnal weather.

The original schedule had been to moor at the bottom of Adderley flight, but Sheila had the bright idea of going on to Audlem, working down the top two locks and tying on the visitor moorings in the pound below. I'm glad it was her idea, as it was her turn to lock, and those moorings were absolutely chock-a-block, leaving us with no option but to carry on down the Thick.

I  offered to take over, but she preferred to stay with our established routine for the day. There was a lot of traffic by now, so that we were working one up, one down at most of the locks. Nine extra locks later, we found a mooring below 11, in the long pound above the village. It's not our favourite stop as, although a signed and ringed mooring, it has the dreaded Shroppie ledge underwater, and we still haven't acquired any go-kart tyres which are the only really effective form of fender on the ledge.

No matter, it's only for one night. After lunch we walked into the village, visiting the butcher (Market Drayton doesn't have one in the centre) and getting an Independent from the Co-op.

Tomorrow, we'll water below Lock 13 and then carry on to Coole Pilate.

Back to Adderley

The 3 signal here at the foot of Adderley Locks is a bit off and on, so I'm just doing a quick "we're all still here" post today, and I'll hopefully be able to do a better one tomorrow when we're in a better signal area.

It was still very windy this morning, so we hung around at Coole Pilate for a couple of hours until it moderated, and then set off. We had a good run up Audlem, with almost all of the locks with us, finishing by around ten past one, when we stopped for lunch.

We thought about going on to Market Drayton this afternoon, as it was now very pleasant, but decided not to risk a Saturday night there. Just as well as it happens, as we got well stemmed up just before getting to Adderley. There'd been a lot of veg clearing from the offside, but no matching dredging, so that the channel was nowhere near where you'd expect to find it. In addition, the pound was a bit down, and Sanity Again ended up aground and slewed right across the cut.

Just shows, no matter how much experience you've got, you can still get caught out. About half an hour of trying various dodges failed to move her. In the end, I put a very long line from the stern to the towpath, and by heaving on this, and letting the bow swing into the middle of the cut, she finally came free. We were very relieved, but now, after 15 locks and then this, quite knack tired out.

It's been an interesting 24 hours; last night we re-moored a BW mud hopper at Coole Pilate, which had pulled its pins out and was drifting down the cut towards us in the howling gale.

Tomorrow, through Market Drayton and on to Goldstone Wharf, at least.

Steadily on up the Shroppie

27th & 28th February

We got away to a prompt start on Friday, doing some very pleasant boating on a day which was mild out of the wind, but quite chilly in it, typical early Spring, in fact. It took around 45 minutes to get to Norbury Junction, where we had to queue for a little time for one of the water points. Once on there, we soon refilled the tank.

I took some recycling round to the bins and investigated the chandlery for a vee shaped bow fender. The one I made has proved unsatisfactory: I know what the problem is, but it means half dismantling it to sort it, which is going to take a bit of time, especially as my right shoulder has been playing up ever since I made the wretched thing.

It looks like we'll have to wait until Nantwich to get a replacement. I plan then to leave that one on Sanity and reconstruct the problem one for Sanity Again.

We chugged on towards Market Drayton, which I had over optimistically predicted we might reach that night. In fact even Goldstone Wharf proved to be too far in a wind which was getting ever more penetrating, so we stopped on some rather shallow SUCS moorings just after Knighton, beyond Bridge 47.

No sooner had we settled down to make lunch than John Jackson in Roach appeared coming towards us from the North. I hailed him, and asked about either Excel or PureHeat. He had neither, but did have some Taybrite, so I got four bags of that which should keep us going for a couple of weeks at least.

Having sorted the coal to my satisfaction after lunch, we took a bit of time to do a thorough floor sweep. It gets done pretty well every day at the moment, as it's impossible to keep mud from boots off it whilst we are boating, but this time we took more time to get into all the corners and really clean the place up.

Towards the end of the day, we heard a droning sound gradually getting louder and had one of those on and off conversations about whether it was a plane or a boat. It turned out to be a boat dragging one of the worst breaking washes I've ever seen on the cut:


Note that this wasn't a hire boat or a day boat as we first thought. It was a privateer out of Norbury Junction, and they really should have known better. It's not even as if such engine revs makes the boat go any faster. They slowed down as soon as they saw my camera come out, so the pic is after they'd throttled back.

Yesterday we made another good start. Our habit of sleeping with the over bed Houdini a little open means that on fine mornings we get the benefit of the bird song and the early light, making it quite easy to contemplate getting up and doing some boating.

Down Tyrley Locks we went and into Market Drayton. Seyella was on the water point, and I had a few words with Geoff as we went by. He told me that I had missed Greygal: drat! Seyella was planning to do the same as us, and move on to the top of Adderley for the night. They went off whilst we were lunching before shopping, but when in due course we got to Adderley, they weren't there.

We had a bit of fun trying to find an adequate T-mobile signal, but in the end gave up after repositioning the boat once, and I just put a brief holding post up until we could get this one sorted.

Later in the afternoon, Mike and Jo in Sarah Kate came up the flight and tied near us. Mike told me that they had seen Seyella at the bottom of the flight. The dreaded Shroppie ledge is very wide on the moorings at the top, and they hadn't been able to get close enough in to let the dog off.

Mike and Jo invited us in for a drink before dinner, so we had a very pleasant session with them, catching up from when we last saw them. Normally we make contact during the Crick Show, when we are working on the Braidbar stand, and Mike is on Phil Speight's.

I'd popped a frozen block of veggie curry in the oven before we went, so we were able to settle down in the saloon when we came back whilst the rice cooked, and then have an easy meal and an early night.

I'll cover today's boating in the regular post tomorrow: we're at the excellent Coole Pilate moorings now, with just a GPRS connection, but adequate to the purpose.

No post today

Hi folks

We're at the top of Adderley on a really poor T-mobile signal, so no blog post today. Normal service tomorrow, hopefully!

Recovered from our exertions, we go on to Market Drayton

12th & 13th February

Yesterday was another case of a seriously lazy start, as we'd decided to stay another day at the top of Adderley, enjoying the fine but cold weather in the morning. We dismantled and cut up for firewood the louvre door we hauled out of the cut some time ago.

The engine was run during the morning, allowing another washload to be processed. By the time we'd done all this, any lingering mist had burnt off, and it was becoming positively warm – warm enough, in fact, to let us sit out on the towpath, and indeed eat lunch out there.

The boat tied behind us was deploying a solar panel, and the guy off it told us that he was getting 4 amps into his batteries in these conditions, and would expect to get 6 in the summer.

This led Sheila to do some rough calculations on the basis of say £1500 for purchasing and installing such a large panel, and then saving between one and 1.5 hours engine running every day. It's very rough stuff, but the indications are that the installation would pay for itself in about 12 years.

With the high demand our fridge freezer makes on the batteries, we would never get to a point where we didn't feel the need to run the engine most days, but a boat with simpler electrics might well. I understand that the panel may be expected to have a life of around 20 years, so it is a long term but feasible proposition on economics alone, in addition to the reduction in hassle.

Note, however, that the production of solar panels itself results in a lot of CO2, so the environmental case is by no means as straightforward.

After lunch we took a walk along the towpath, just to aid digestion and enjoy the amazing weather.

Today was another slow start on a frosty but sunny morning. By 10.15 we were underway, heading for Market Drayton to shop and get water. First call was the Victoria Wharf and coal yard, where we bought five bags of Excel at £6.95 a bag. Excel isn't my favourite fuel, but it's good to have some reserve on the roof – we can expect to be using the stove for another few weeks at least, and we were down to the last two bags of PureHeat.

On the way we passed a small mystery, a boat called Hannah, whose signwriting described it as built by Les Allen but painted by Braidbar. We've never seen a boat claiming to be painted by Braidbar before – must check it out with the Braidbar Owners list.

After mooring on the 5 day moorings just north of the bypass bridge, we did the shopping, lunching and shopping routine. It's a decent walk (about 10 minutes) to the Morrisons from those moorings, much better than from the recommended town moorings further on.

All this being done, we decided to go onto the water point this afternoon, and then moor on the visitor moorings the other side of town, by the playing fields and further away from the road noise of the bypass.

A bit of extra boating

10th & 11th February

The plan being to go to Audlem for Sunday night, I'd set the heating to come on at 7, and by 8.30 we were away. It was a very misty morning, and for the first half hour we ran with the tunnel light and navigation lights on. It was a classically fine morning of late winter or early spring, and superb boating weather once the mist had lifted.

By 10.15 we were at Hack Green, home of the Secret Nuclear Bunker, and a little later we passed Madasa-soles (no comment) at Coole Pilate moorings. One of the great things about the Shroppie is the number of mooring places (in this case complete with picnic tables and barbeque stands) funded by the Shropshire Union Canal Society.

After a short wait for a Challenger boat to finish winding below lock 15, we worked up 15 and 14 and tied on some very quiet visitor moorings by 12.30. What a good day's boating we thought, all of four locks and all, little knowing what was in store...

After a leisurely lunch, we strolled back down to the moorings below the bottom lock, as Braidbar 96, Leonard, was tied there. We thought there might be someone aboard, but there was no sign of it, although the presence of a couple of pairs of boots drying on the roof suggested that they hadn't gone far away.

As we headed back, the guy on the boat next to Leonard, Director's Cut, whom we know slightly, popped his head out to warn us that with lock 15 stopped tomorrow, BW would lock the entire flight, as there was nowhere to wind once on the way down. This meant that we needed to be up the other 13 locks by the end of the day.

Since it was still a beautiful day, we weren't desperately upset, and soon had Sanity pulled forward onto the water point to top up the tank before going on. There was a boat moored for the winter just by the water point, and they told us that there was a good chance that BW would lock Adderley flight as well, as there's nowhere to wind between the two flights.

It was now 2.30, and we had 18 locks to do to be sure of being clear of the stoppage's effects. Although a bit of a challenge, it's nice to be able to demonstrate that we can do some serious boating on occasion, and indeed we weren't found wanting.

The locks were busy with gongoozlers, it being a sunny Sunday, which always adds to the fun. By 4.15 we were out of Audlem flight, and had time for a quick cup of tea before Adderley hove into view at 4.30. Just on 5.30 we came out of Adderley top and moored on the visitor moorings beyond the winding hole. We'd done 22 locks between 8.30 and 5.30, with two hours for lunch.

I admit that we were a bit tired, but there was a great sense of achievement. It's in these situations that I'm glad of my habit of freezing spare portions of meals. We were able to have beef stew with mashed potato and peas without too much preparation time, which was just as well. A quiet evening followed.

This morning we had a relaxed start, feeling rather stiff – what it's going to be like tomorrow when the DOMS* sets in, I don't know. After breakfast (at about 10 o'clock) I strolled down to the top lock – it wasn't locked. Heigh ho – better to have done too much than not enough – if we'd stopped below Adderley, neither of us would have slept well last night.

As may be imagined, it's been a quiet day today. Some necessary financial things have been done on the net, and after lunch we took a walk to Adderley village, just for the exercise to stay awake, really. There's nothing there these days, except a Post Office that opens only occasionally, and is rumoured to stock some supplies, but it was all shut up this afternoon.

Still, it was a nice walk in the sun, and stopped us from seizing up altogether after yesterday's locks.

*DOMS = Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness