Stone to Stoke

The pub crawl continued last night with our visit to La Dolce Vita. As with all the other pubs and restaurants we've visited this trip, we've done entries for the Braidbar Owners' Group pub guide, and I think I can best quote here two extracts from what I've written there:

Good Italian restaurant food, much more than just pasta and pizza, reliable rather than exciting...

For those who know the Falco novels of Lindsey Davis, the large bits of statuary which decorate the dining room have clearly been sold by Falco’s father Geminus, and are rather overpowering. Apart from that, this is a reliable rather than stunning restaurant, with a good value table d’hote menu during the week; we paid £25 per head including drinks. Choosing from the à la carte menu would be much pricier.

We've no complaints, but whereas if we were in Stone and had something to celebrate, we might well have a meal in La Dolce Vita, if we were in Alvecote, we'd try to think of something to celebrate so as to justify going to the Samuel Barlow. On the other hand, Stone isn't short of eateries  – another that's been recommended to us is the Pasta di Piazza in the High Street.

I had a bit of a broken night, and we both woke early, so we had breakfast and still managed to get away on the dot of seven; I wouldn't have lasted up Meaford Locks without eating anyway. It's been a very good day, weather-wise, and we made steady progress to Barlaston (stop to pick up a paper) and then up the remaining locks and through the grim reality that is Stoke.

We were following first time hirers in the Black Prince boat Lizzie; they were mostly enjoying it, sufficiently so that they are hiring again from Stone Canal Cruising in the autumn, taking a month to do the Four Counties Ring. They'd chosen Lizzie because the chap's grandmother was called Lizzie and had been born on a boat in Etruria.

Stoke isn't as bad as Nuneaton to boat through (only bits of the BCN are worse than Nuneaton), but nevertheless we were pleased to arrive at Etruria just on twelve, having taken five hours to do the ten locks and however many miles from Stone.

We've tied just through the bridge from the pub at the Festival Park; it's a Toby Carvery, so not likely to rival last night for quality, but still less hassle than cooking ourselves.

Oh, I should mention a conversation I had with a dog walker whilst waiting for Sheila to turn Trentham Lock; he was stunned with the quality of the boat, kept saying how nice it looked and so forth, and we got into the usual conversation about "is it yours and do you live on it" and so on. This was a bit more complicated than usual, of course, "no it's not ours but yes we live on a boat..."

Still, better than a) trying to explain the name and b) Peter Mason's experience one time when he and Susan were actually grabbing a week off to take the Braidbar hire boat Islay out. Waiting at a lock a passing woman asked Peter if it was his boat:

"Yes it is."

"Oh, I thought it was a hire boat"

"Yes it is"

Woman gives Peter a strange look and walks off without further comment.

Tomorrow, through Harecastle and onto the home straight of the Macclesfield, the seventh canal we're using this trip.

Identifying these is left as a homework exercise for the reader...

/blur

On to Stone in glorious weather

As I’ve said before, the great thing about living aboard so as to boat all the time is that, when the good weather arrives, there you are, boating in it. This was definitely the case today; glorious sunshine, almost no wind to speak of*, and a steady bit of boating along a route we know well.

As yesterday, we set off at eight and arrived at the top of Stoke locks just after nine. Some were with us, and some against us, forming no logical pattern that we could see, this being the usual state of affairs on this flight. Some of the locks have leaking top gates and are full when you expect them to be empty, and some have leaking bottom gates and are empty when the logic of the passing traffic says they should be full.

The only untoward incident came in the fourth one down, the one with a railway bridge across the tail. Sanity Again was sinking uneventfully down the emptying lock when she decided to roll over onto her starboard side. There was no sign of any obstruction, and Sheila just had time to sound the horn to attract my attention to the situation when the boat rolled back and carried on down as if nothing had happened.

No damage done; a folding chair fell over inside, and one porthole doily fell out, but that’s all. As before in such situations, the solid construction of doors and drawers meant that nothing flew open or fell out.

Sheila was shaken, but carried on.We stopped for lunch at Barlaston, then plodded on down the Meaford flight to tie at the top of Stone, opposite Roger Fuller’s yard. We’ve done a bit of shopping, and plan to carry on to Great Haywood in the morning.

*Note for John Campbell: the Gaviscon helps.