All done and off we go

We had a very good day yesterday, ambling round the Festival, buying some cheese from the Cheese Boat 2 and having burritos for lunch, not to mention a pint in the sunshine.

Fred got the final coat on in the middle of the day; Norbury do a particularly through job, including the weed hatch trunking.

This morning we were up and about in good time, which was just as well as Lee was there pretty well spot on half eight. I put the weed hatch back in and he lifted the top stop plank to allow the water to start flooding into the dock. It takes quite a while, but sometime after nine Sanity Again was afloat once more.

David came over from the office and did a master class in boat handling; the basin was very full and the bridge hole partly obstructed by the bows of two working boats breasted up on the pub moorings. Lee had to do a bit of bow hauling to swing her round towards the embankment, after which it was a straight reverse to end up on the service wharf, with no scratches on the nice new blacking.

We took 100 litres of diesel at a very reasonable 76.9 ppl for domestic use, as well as a new cylinder of propane. All in all, an excellent job at a fair rate. By ten we were on our way; I was sweating a bit to do a decent exit in the cross wind, but all went well.

We've run a washload en route and made it to Brewood just after two o'clock. Lots of traffic about, it being a Bank Holiday weekend and we were lucky to find a mooring just by Bridge 13.

We'll make a crack of dawn start tomorrow, so as to get through Autherley and the Pendeford Rockin' before too many others are up and about. Just to be on the safe side, we've left the covers on the solar panel until we get to Coven tomorrow; we'd covered them whilst in the dock to save having to clean mess off them after being pressure washed and so on, so they can stay there to protect us from ill wishers at Autherley as well.

A day in Brewood

I was going to make a pun about brooding, but decided it would be beneath me, just like the eggs of a broody hen…

/wahaha

Oh dear, sorry, seems to be one of those days, mainly because it's all gone reasonably well. We walked into the village this morning, taking the footpath route from Bridge 13 for a change, as described in the First Mate Guide. You turn left off the path at the green garage door and come out opposite the church. If you then turn right and then walk round the side of the churchyard you'll get lost, so don't do that, turn left instead and come out in Market Place.

We visited the butcher, stopping outside for a natter with Polly and Steve(?) from Dances with Dragons first, then went into the bakers where we got a rather ordinary wholemeal loaf. A visit to the Co-op got various other items and we finished up in Cooper's, the deli, to get creamed coconut block. As luck would have it, they had a much nicer looking loaf, and cheaper, so we must remember to call in there first next time.

Polly and Steve told us of some hassles they'd had with the surgeries at both Gnosall and Brewood, trying to get repeat medications. It looks like both places weren't used to the needs of travelling folk with long term medical conditions, which just makes us all the more grateful for the helpfulness of Alrewas and Willington surgeries.

After lunch Sheila went and had a very good hairdo at Salon Brewood and for a reasonable price too, it being a day when they had a discount for OAPs. Whilst she was away I had a quick check over the engine and found yet another weep in the coolant system, this time at one of the joints to the skin tank. It hadn't lost a lot of coolant, so I topped up the header tank and nipped up the clip on the joint. We'll see how it does over the next few days.

I also took a walk along to the Countrywide Cruisers base to make sure that they were still trading, not having seen any of their boats about since we got onto the Four Counties Ring. We need to get a pump out tomorrow. I had a shouted conversation with a guy working on a boat over there and then, on his advice, rang the yard and spoke to the boss. He was happy to confirm that we could get done tomorrow morning, so I'll take the opportunity then to suss out whether they've just changed hands or what.

They may just be having a quiet start to the season, I guess. This time between Easter and May Day Bank holiday is often a bit slow.

The Quick and the Slow on the Shroppie

On another decent day we've made it round the tight corner onto the Shroppie. We got away bang on half eight and had a very good run to the Pendeford Rockin'. Sanity Again was moving well for much of the time; it looks as if CRT's dredging efforts are paying off.

We got through the narrows and met another boat waiting at the southern end; traffic has been quite steady today, though the mooring sites remain uncrowded. Once on the Shroppie we speeded up even more, often pushing up towards the full 4 mph. This made for a short run to Brewood; we've not stopped here for a while since these days we more often stay out in the country on the SUCS moorings between Bridges 7 and 8 (there was but one boat there as we passed, Lynx, and they've since joined us here at Brewood).

Sheila ran a washload en route, and we just had nice time to walk into the village before lunch. My repeat meds were waiting in the pharmacy; this was a relief – it's the first time I've used the "SAE to a pharmacy" technique since joining the Willington practice so it's good to know that they manage it as well as Alrewas does.

We'll stay here tomorrow; Sheila's booked a hair appointment at Salon Brewood, who advertise "professional hairdressing". Good to know that they aren't amateurs, then…

The ways that you know you're on the Shroppie are straight pounds, deep water and deep cuttings, and dodgy mobile connections. It's more or less OK here, about one bar on most networks, but we know that it won't get much better as we move north through Wheaton Aston and Gnosall Heath. The navigation gets faster but the net gets slower.

I'll try and keep the blog up to date, but if I miss one or even two days, do not panic, the anonymous commenters will not have got to me!

/wahaha

An early start and onto the Shroppie again

After a restless night, we made an early start, so that I was standing at the tiller by twenty past six. We'd both managed to ablute and breakfast ourselves by the time we were approaching the Pendeford Rockin', which was passed without meeting another boat.

Possibly because I was feeling a bit dopy and underslept, I made a bit of a hash of the turn at Cut End, hitting the towpath coping with the stem of Sanity Again before I could get her round. In my defence, it is a pig of a turn in a long boat, and quite the most difficult direction to take it at that. I guess Telford was assuming that the vast majority of the traffic would be heading for Wolverhampton, so that the acuteness of the angle to go north again wouldn't be a problem.

The early start meant that we'd reached our goal for the day, the visitor moorings before Brewood between bridges 7 and 8, by ten to nine. We were a bit worried that there wouldn't be room here, but needn't have been. We'd not long been tied before the boat behind left, so we pulled back a bit, making us the first boat on the visitor mooring. Typically, the boat ahead of us then left, and another arrived and tied in such a way as to occupy two spaces with one boat. As I type this, I think he's being asked to pull back to allow another boat to get in in front of him.

It really is important at this busy time of year to give some thought to the spaces you leave between your boat and the others on the mooring.

The rest of the day has passed quietly; I've been working on my document about the IWA Festival, and Sheila has been gardening on the roof and the like. Tomorrow, we go on to Gnosall Heath, a nice mooring but lacking in Vodafone signal.

Heading North on the Shroppie

25th & 26th February

We got away by nine on a cool, misty, murky day yesterday, cruising the best bit of the northern section of the Staffs and Worcs, the summit from Gailey to Pendeford Rockin'. In typical fashion, we met nothing moving until we approached the Rockin', whereupon an OwnerShips, Spring Dew, appeared just as we were lining up.

In the absence of any wind, it was no big deal to wait for them to emerge: they told us that there were two boats ahead of us. We had been aware of one, as Epinone, a Louis and Joshua, had passed us whilst we were eating breakfast.

I'm pleased to say that I managed the rather tricky turn into the Shroppie at Autherley, or Cut End as the old boaters called it, without touching the sides. It's a very acute turn coming from the North, as the Shroppie runs almost parallel to the Staffs and Worcs for the first couple of miles.

Through the stop lock it was another challenge to get past all the Napton Narrowboats tied just beyond. The next bit of cut was lined with fishermen, but they seemed a relatively cheerful bunch, and several exchanged a few words with us as we went by.

There's this big variation in the anglers you pass; I'm always ready with a smile or nod, or to try to take whatever line they signal they'd prefer, but sometimes they just don't look at you. It can be hard to guess just where they've prepared their swim – when in doubt, take the centre, but always be ready to move to one side or the other. I've even known one ask me to send a bit of prop wash into where he's fishing, if he wants the water a bit murkier than it is.

On the way up the Shroppie, we spotted a group of 14 herons all standing around in a field – most unusual for the UK, though presumably the term heronry implies that they make a habit of it somewhere or sometime.

We tied between Bridges 7 and 8 just in nice time for lunch, to the sound of a skylark calling; Sheila managed to spot it, but I was too busy navigating to be able to take the time needed to do so. After lunch, we identified three geocaches nearby, one to the north and two to the south, so we popped out and found the southern ones. It wasn't a mega haul like the other day, but still a very pleasant stroll on a cool early Spring day.

Back at the boat I did some internet work, then Sheila took over whilst I showered. We didn't need any heat in the boat during the day, but I relit the stove and ran the Eberspacher as things cooled down in the late afternoon.

It has been much cooler again today, with a sharp wind blowing from the West. Sheila had soon steered us to Wheaton Aston, where we worked down the lock and stopped at Turners for diesel. He's currently charging 48.9 pence per litre at domestic rate, and will take any split you want to declare. We're now running at 20% propulsion, having been down on 10% whilst hanging around for the last month.

Note that even if you declare the "standard" 60/40 split, that still works out at less than 75 ppl overall, so I don't understand anyone who prefers to collect white diesel at around 99 ppl from the local supermarket.

Refuelled, we went on to Gnosall; not being sure that we'd get there in time to shop for lunch, I made some bread from a kit as we boated along. We've tied on the visitor moorings just through the tunnel, not far from where we took part in our little bit of real life Casualty drama last year.

The Vodafone connection is pretty poor here, but the T-mobile internet is not bad. After walking into the village to shop, we came back and watched a DVD, the copy of St Trinians that Elanor lent us before we left Alrewas.

Tomorrow, we'll go on to Norbury to water and visit the chandlery, then finish at Market Drayton to do a supermarket session.

Good boating but bad Vispa

26th & 27th February

Main theme for the last two days has been the continuing non-performance of my ISP and web host, Vispa. Having gone down early Sunday morning, an old version of the website finally came back at lunchtime today, and the email has only just (4.45) made it back.

Vispa have offered a lot of excuses about data corruption and cross contamination of the back up disks, but surely that's what we pay professionals to avoid? Anyway, like a lot of their clients, I suspect, it's finally prompted me to look elsewhere. Moving the registration of nbsanity.net was going to be a hassle, as it's a US domain, so I've registered a new one, nbsanity.me.uk, with my new web host provider, Dataflame.

It's going to be a lot cheaper, and unlike Vispa, they provide 24/7 support. I didn't just pick them out of the blue – they were recommended by my good friend Will Chapman.

For the time being, the nbsanity.net site and email will continue to work – there will be a substantial overlap period, and I'll announce the switch over both here and in my email signatures. Please don't adjust your sets yet! However, if anyone has emailed any of us at the nbsanity.net address in the last four days, it will have been lost, so please send it again.

The backup email address that some people use which ends @mac.com has not been affected.

Meanwhile, we've also been doing some serious boating. On a bright and breezy morning yesterday, we filled up with diesel at Wheaton Aston at 57.9 ppl, and also topped up the water tank. Then we boated off up the newly refurbished lock to Brewood, getting there in time for lunch. On the way we were startled to see a pair of mating frogs in the water just by the lock. I wouldn't have thought a canal a good place for frog spawn, but there you go.

BW had been doing some forestry on the bank of the cutting above the moorings at Brewood, and left the wood for all to take, so we loaded up the roof with some useful sized bits of branch, leaving the sections of trunk for those with chain saws to deal with.

Today we made a prompt start, heating on at seven and away just after eight. Before ten we were through Autherley Junction and on our way down the Staffs and Worcs. We got to Compton by 11, checked out Lime Kiln chandlery but didn't buy anything, and got some stores at the Spar in the village.

Moving on a bit to below Wightwick Lock, we stopped again for lunch, then boated on to the Bratch. It was still a fine day, so we've come down the flight and moored on the towpath below for the night.

It's more built up down here than we remembered, but all the walking traffic seems to be dog and push chair exercising, so hopefully we won't be disturbed in the night. Tomorrow we'll do another decent day to Kinver, ready to get the cratch cover repaired on Friday.