Slowish going on a busy cut

 At half seven we made a slightly earlier start than we’d planned and took advantage of much improved conditions to head for Great Haywood. Other boats were on the move too; an Andersen hire boat that Sheila helped down Weston Lock gloomily explained their early start with “We’re on a schedule”. Sure enough, they were trying to do the Four Counties ring in a week.

Not a particularly good idea at anytime of the year, it’s a really silly one now that the days are so much shorter. If you've only got a week, choose a shorter cruise and take the time to enjoy it.

We stopped on the water point at Great Haywood to get enough into the tank to see us to Mercia and to dump rubbish and recycling. Whilst that was going on I nipped over to the excellent farm shop and stocked up with greengroceries.

Off we went again, queuing for long enough at the lock for Sheila to go and get a paper (joy). Just below we crossed with fellow Mercia moorers and lodge owners Steve and Sal on Smile and Wave; we just had time for a quick exchange of greetings before carrying on.

I’d planned to go on to the pig farm mooring just beyond Bridge 69 today, but we were running quite late, having had to queue again at Colwich. By half eleven we’d made it to Wolseley Bridge and the dark skies were just starting to precipitate. We need to do some banking at Rugeley, so there’s no point in getting there too soon tomorrow; an early start from here will do nicely.

Strangely, having got away from the Four Counties, the cut is much busier; some traffic is probably heading for the Huddlesford Boat Gathering, but that can’t be the whole explanation.

We’ve spent the afternoon pottering about on and off line. My Yahoo account has just been transferred to the new style web interface. Guess what, it’s slow, clunky and doesn’t work at all in Safari.

Thanks Yahoo, that helps me make up my mind to grasp the nettle and transfer the Braidbar Owners’ Group to a private forum.

Wolseley Bridge, a blogging encounter, and a bit of a rant

First the cruising; we've come on down to Wolseley Bridge in a fairly straightforward run. Things were a bit chaotic at Great Haywood, mainly because someone was trying to reverse off the water point as the same time as we came through the bridge and Golden Eagle came off the Staffs and Worcs. Otherwise, there wasn't much of a hold up at any of the locks, and I was able to get a paper as we waited for Haywood Lock.

A bit before that, we'd stopped for coffee with Carol, George and Molly on Rock 'n' Roll. We had a good old natter, especially once we discovered that Carol and I were working in the NHS in Meirionnydd at the same time, though we'd never actually run into each other at that time.

A couple of day boats were having a mega hen party when we got here, but I managed to squeeze Sanity Again in behind them. They were certainly enjoying their outing in fine spring weather, always good to see.

You can tell it's spring by a number of signs, one of the less welcome ones being the appearance of whinging letters in the waterways press about the fact the continuous cruisers don't pay mooring fees. This is, of course, because they don't have moorings (the clue is in the term "continuous cruiser"), but this often seems to escape the understanding (if that's the word for it) of Disgruntled of Braunston.

Lesley on Yarwood did a good riposte in her blog the other day, whilst Maffi was rather more forthright in his. I've written a letter to Canal Boat in reply to the ones they've published; anyone who wants to do the same is welcome to borrow from what I said:

Spring is here; the birds are singing in the early morn, sunshine and showers accompany our cruising...  and envious folk whose commitments prevent them from boating all the time write whinging and badly informed letters to the magazines demanding that continuous cruisers should pay more for their licences (vide Mr Haines and Mr Lawson last month).

How often does it have to be said? The BW licence allows the holder to keep a boat on BW waters, and, if he or she is lucky, the water's there and the cut's not stopped, to boat it about. The mooring fee pays for permanent use of a mooring, online, offside, in a marina, whatever. Since continuous cruisers don't have a permanent mooring, they don't pay a mooring fee. There is no "continuous cruiser" licence, there is no "mooring licence".

BW (and hopefully CRT in due course) needs to do three things. Firstly, they need to enforce the mooring rules much more firmly, so that it doesn't pay to loiter in one area all the time without buying a mooring permit. Much of the legitimate annoyance comes from the sight of bridge hoppers lurking about on the towpath, neither cruising nor paying for a mooring.

Secondly, the charge that BW makes to most but not all private mooring operators (I believe 9% of the mooring fee?) should be taken off there and added to all our licences.

Finally, boats moored in all marinas and off line basins connected to the system should be required to have a BW licence, no matter what the ancient history of the location may be.

That way, everyone pays for what they get, and no one subsidises the others.

The email address to use is editor'a'canalboat.co.uk, replacing 'a' with @

Through Rugeley again

I'm pleased to say that we've survived our meal in The Swan last night; as expected, it has considerably cleaned up its act since getting a bad hygiene report last year. The food remains basic pub grub, but well cooked and tasty. Sheila was in veggie mood, so went for the vegetarian lasagne, as she wanted a break from chips as well. I went for the beef, leek and cheese pie.

As expected, I got a goodly portion of chips with mine, as well as some nicely cooked broccoli and peas. Sheila was also blessed with chips as it turned out; only a UK pub would serve chips with pasta.

This morning, the weather finally turned nasty for a bit. We made a seven o'clock start yet again, but I had to postpone breakfast whilst we locked up Middle and Shade House Locks. I managed to feed on the run to Woodend, then Sheila went below to get hers. As we chugged rapidly on (Bunnies Warren is a very fast boat, especially compared to Sanity Again), the rain gradually turned to sleet, and then to downright snow.

Sheila came out and relieved me; I went below, changed out of my damp trousers and hung things up to dry, and the precipitation ceased.

Well, it seems fair enough on Mother's Day, I suppose.

It was exactly three hours to Rugeley; we took an hour to do a bit of shopping, then decided to take a break for coffee, reading and lunch before doing the final run to Wolseley Bridge. Just as we were preparing to set off, we realised that the boat tied bow to bow with us was our old share boat, Streamline, now 13 years old but still looking very good. We had a good old natter with our former co-owners before getting away.

Arriving at Wolseley Bridge, we had no trouble finding a space on the moorings, and finished tying up just as the rain came on again. It's been on and off for the remainder of the day, but the forecast is much better for tomorrow.

We plan to investigate the Shimla Palace here tonight; I've not been able to get through on the phone to find out if they have a table despite it being Mother's Day, but if they don't, we'll get a take away from them and eat on the boat.

Merry chaos at Great Haywood.

Things went reasonably to plan this morning, after a quiet night at Weston, where the moorings got very busy by late afternoon. We got to Great Haywood just after nine, to find a couple of boats already watering, but just room for us on the end.

We'd not filled the tank at Stone, and wanted to top it right up here. After a bit of hassle getting a fitting to attach to the outlet on the water point, we were able to settle down. The recycling was chucked in the relevant skips and after that we were kept entertained by conversations with our fellow boaters.

First up were John and Elizabeth, Kiwis on Helen Louise. We had a good natter with them, then they went off and after a bit Periwinkle arrived. Periwinkle is a hotel boat; they had to tie outside us whilst our tank finished filling.

We found ourselves following Snowgoose down Haywood Lock; I nipped off and got a paper whilst Sheila worked Sanity Again down. Colwich was being repainted by a Community Payback team so even more merry fun was had by all, especially as there was a queue of four boats below.

This included fellow Braidbar continuous cruisers Bob and Shirley on Up Spirits, number 102. We last saw them just under twelve months ago at Marple.

We stopped for the day at Wolseley Bridge in steadily improving weather. This is handy, as it means I can get on and do the bits of revarnishing in pleasant conditions. It's not a great deal, just repairing sun damage along the tops of the external doors, and a bit of abrasion in the frame of the back doors, where you rub it getting in and out of the boat.

Another rub down with wet and dry and a further coat of polyurethane varnish tomorrow will see most of it sorted. By then, w'll have done our usual run through Rugeley and moored at Kings Bromley, I expect.

We're off!

We said our goodbyes to Steve, Jenny and Dave in the marina, and to fellow moorers Kath, Bob and Ian this morning, and, having filled the water tank, set off for Burton. Sheila made me steer, and I managed for the first time to get out of the tricky marina entrance without touching the towpath opposite. The trick is to lean the side of the boat, quite near the bow, on the bull nose and motor her round until you've got a clear line into the channel.

Sheila worked Haywood Lock, and was menaced by a swan as she came down onto the towpath to take a line from me. It stretched its neck straight up and hissed like a kettle, but embarrassingly for it  slipped on the mud and nearly fell over. I haven't had such a good laugh for ages, it's just a shame Sally wasn't there to see it, as she's seriously unimpressed with swans.

We had a steady chug to Colwich Lock, reopen after its three week stoppage. The bottom gates seem a little better, though the collar on the towpath side gate looks very dodgy, unattached to the heel post and slopping around. I shouldn't be surprised if there's an emergency stoppage there shortly, once the traffic builds up at one of the busiest locks on the system.

The weather was pretty grim, frankly, so we've only come as far as Wolseley Bridge for tonight, and will work our way gently on to Alrewas over the next few days, planning to arrive on Thursday. We need to be in Burton on Monday, but we want to give plenty of time for the river to go down, as it's brimming its banks here at the moment.

So what did we make of Great Haywood Marina?

As always, what follows is my personal view, your mileage may  differ, etc, etc.

First off, and most importantly, we were told before going there that the people were really nice, and that's certainly true. We didn't have a cross word with any of them over four long hard cold months, and Dave and Jenny work really hard to keep the place functioning and smart.

Steve and Mike, the managers, are always helpful and ready to share advice or help with any problems you've got.

Pricewise, I guess the charges are about in the middle of the range, certainly not cheap, but not a complete rip off. As I said early on, on a scale from scruffy to shiny, most of the boats are towards the shiny end, and there are rules about not keeping stuff on the roof, not using whirligig dryers or having very tall TV aerials.

You are not supposed to do major work on your boat, though routine servicing, minor jobs and warranty work is fine. In practice, as we found out, with a bit of economy with the truth, you seem to be able to get away with quite a lot. The boat next to us re-floored his saloon and refitted his galley, including a bit of relining and a lot of tiling, whilst we were there, and eventually we had to complain about the noise and dust.

We were also aware of a boat on another pontoon which seemed to be doing a full fit out on the quiet.

In terms of fuel, you can make any declaration you want for your diesel, Calor Gas is available, but only Taybrite as solid fuel "because the moorers like it". There is the coal yard at Colwich, if you can make contact with the guy (we never managed it) and there's always Anglo Welsh.

The marina design isn't great in terms of manoeuvring around, but not as bad some others in the locality. As I said, the entrance is especially tricky, and why oh why don't they organise the design in so many of these new marinas so that you can diesel and pump out from the main line?

There's no decent chandlery anywhere near, though they will deliver stuff from the chandlery at the sister marina at Tattenhall for free. Unfortunately, there's no web shop for that marina, so you can't easily tell what's available or shop around.

Postal deliveries are firmly discouraged, but the village Post Office does Poste Restante.

Would we go back? Probably, but not next year as we want a change. We'd certainly like to try Tattenhall one of these years.

Escape

We were so excited, we got up quite early for us on a Sunday, and by half nine had switched the boat over to cruise mode and crossed the marina to the service jetty. The office doesn't open until ten on Sunday, so we improved the time by dumping our recycling in the bins provided and readying the boat for pump out and diesel.

Geoff, the boss, was doing the job himself today, and he soon had us sorted out. We took the opportunity to pay for another month's mooring, then off we went.

Getting 70 foot out of the marina is not easy; Sheila had to get off the bow onto the towpath opposite and haul it (the bow, not the towpath) round with the mooring line, but at last we were heading down the cut, boating for the first time in nearly three months. After dropping down Haywood Lock, we paused below for me to nip off and get a Sunday paper, then on we chugged to tie at Wolseley Bridge for the night.

After lunch, we've been pottering about; the 3 connection is very good here*, so Sheila's been doing some proof reading whilst I caught up with responding to blog comments and doing this post. Tomorrow, we'll stop in Rugeley for shopping (good Wilkinson's handy for the towpath there) and probably go on to Kings Bromley for the night.

*I've just tested it with Speedtest.net – 3.97Mbps down, 1.49 up, not bad at all for a mobile connection.

A quiet day

I started some new medication for my BP today; I was warned that there might be a dramatic “initial dose effect.” It’s not been very dramatic, but I’m certainly feeling quite sedated.

After a good evening last night with Graham and Carolann, and a lie in this morning courtesy of the move to back UCT/GMT, we’ve had a quiet day on the boat, reading and pottering.

We did manage a walk round the nature reserve here at Wolseley; it’s looking very autumnal, with lots of colour in the trees.

Now (yawn) I’m going back to my book, if that’s OK, an Austin Freeman Dr Thorndyke on the Kindle.

A good day's boating to Wolseley Bridge

Just a quickie today, ‘cos I’ve got lots to do, and it’s getting a bit late.

We’ve done exactly as planned; away from Fradley at eight, arrived Rugeley at twelve. Bought bread, pasties and a paper, had lunch, then did a big shop.

Sheila boated on whilst I stowed stuff in cupboards, then I took the helm for the final run to Wolseley Bridge, getting there just after three.

Lots of traffic about on this last weekend of the holiday boaters season, and lots of boats here at Wolseley; it looks as if the Ash Tree Boat Club are having a mini rally here.

Autumn Years was here ahead of us, and we’ve just had a nice cup of tea and a chat. They are joining us for a drink later on.

Plan is to stay here for tomorrow, then into the marina on Monday.

Steadily North

17th & 18th September

We are obviously winding down and relaxing after the excitements of the summer; we've both had a decent night's sleep for the last two nights, which has added to the pleasure of some steady but undemanding boating.

Yesterday we chugged through Handsacre and Armitage, past the delicious Spode Priory, to Rugeley. There was a moderate amount of traffic, but nothing like that reported further north in some other blogs. We did two shopping trips, either side of a cup of coffee.

The first took in W H Smith (ream of copier paper, newspaper), Wilkinson's (rubber doormat to form core of new side fender) and Morrison's (food shopping). The second concentrated on Morrison's. Where our first trip had focussed on healthy eating with items such as houmous and their gorgeous multigrain bread, the second redressed the balance with bottles of wine and similar.

By the time we were back on the boat for the second time, it was half an hour short of lunch time. We therefore pottered about putting stuff away until it was nearly time to eat, and then we ate.

Then it was off again. We'd postponed a decision about exactly how far to go each day when planning this final cruise of the year, but since the going was good we kept going as far as Wolseley Bridge. I'm glad we did so, as in the early evening we had a knock on the roof and there were Andy and Lyra of Lyra's Adventures.

We had a nice chat, only disturbed by odd noises from the towpath. Andy had insisted on leaving Lyra outside, saying that she was muddy, though she looked remarkably clean to me. Lyra had got a bit bored with waiting and was conducting an investigation of the construction of the rammed gravel of the towpath by digging a hole in it.

Fortunately, being a softish material, it went back quite easily and it was soon hard to tell where she had been working.

Andy had reassured us about levels of traffic, so we postponed our departure this morning until seven o'clock. Nonetheless, even at that time we soon found boats coming towards us. There were no delays at either Colwich or Haywood, though, and by half eight we were on the Great Haywood water point topping up the tank.

This did allow some boats to pass us and there was a queue of three at Hoo Mill when we got there. The spacing of locks on this section from Great Haywood to Barlaston means that once you've queued for one lock the boats tend to stay spaced out, so that as long as you don't thrash along too quickly you seldom have to wait very long below each of the subsequent locks.

That's how it worked out today; there would often be one or two boats waiting above each lock but we were delayed very little. We'd planned to stop at Salt, between Weston and Sandon, but since it was such good boating weather, calm and mild, we kept going and found a mooring new to us about half way between Sandon and Aston.

We've had a very pleasant afternoon here, with the weather improving all the time. I checked that the sludge pump was still working, since it's been out of use for a few months and we may well get a chance to use it shortly.

Apart from that, I've advertised Sanity for sale on the web site and to the canals list. By coincidence, there will be three secondhand Braidbars for sale at the Open Day a week on Saturday. The hire boat Skye, the show boat the year after Sanity, is on the market as Peter Mason is building a replacement for her this winter. And we've just heard that Essence, the show boat the year after Skye, is also up for sale.

So anyone coming to the Open Day can see the show boats from 2004, 2005, and 2006 and buy whichever of them takes their fancy.

Tomorrow we'll do another early start and hopefully get up the Stone locks before it gets too busy. We plan to moor above Newcastle Road, on the rings with their individual solar powered cat's-eyes, just to make a change from our usual mooring below the winding hole at the bottom of the flight.

Single handing in the wind

30th & 31st January

A further examination of the weather forecast yesterday morning confirmed that I had a two day window to get to Rugeley and back if I wanted to do so in ice free conditions. Accordingly I was underway by nine.

Incidentally, this reminds me to say that I've changed my favourite weather site. I used to use the main Met Office one, having flirted briefly with Met Monkey (too funky for me). Recently, though, I've come to prefer Met Check; it does a daily summary, and the info for a given location is more detailed, and goes further ahead. The site loads much faster, as well.

It was a damp and breezy day, so I wrapped up well. Leaving the towpath at Tixall was simple. Having started up and put the tiller on (always a good idea before letting go), I released the bow, nipped down to the back and untied there. It was a bit of a scramble to get the piling chain out before Sanity left without me, but I got there in time, hopped onto the stern and put the tiller down.

The bow was already well out, and so she made a very satisfying turn under a fair bit of power to start heading for Great Haywood. Once off the Wide, the wind was no real problem at all, and I made good progress down Great Haywood and Colwich Locks, arriving at Rugeley by 11.15, just nice time for a cup of coffee before shopping.

That took me up to lunchtime, and having fed, I set off again to the winding hole just beyond the railway bridges. There was a bit of traffic about – I was the middle one of three in succession turning there, but it all thinned out and I got to Wolseley Bridge in solitary state.

Just the two of us were moored on the rings south of the road bridge, there being three more on the other side. Well satisfied with the day's endeavours, I had a quiet afternoon and a good night's kip.

Today I got away just before nine again, in weather much as before, though if anything the wind got gustier as the day went on. This was to have its main effect at the end of the day, but for most of the cruising was still not a problem.

Back at Great Haywood, I stopped briefly above the lock to get a paper. Single handing tends to mean that this sort of thing just takes a lot longer than it would if accompanied; I had to stop the engine, tie properly and lock the boat up just to make the five minute trip to the shop. Normally, I'd have left Sheila on board, probably with the boat on a centreline, assuming I hadn't just abandoned her working the lock and gone to get it.

Arriving at the water point, I found two boats already in possession, but only had to wait a short while before it was my turn. I used the interim to make a cup of coffee and dump the rubbish and recycling.

Reversing back off to make the turn under the junction bridge was a bit trickier than usual in the wind, but not a big deal, and I was soon back on the Wide. Here the fun began. I'd already prepared the centreline with a big piling hook strung on it, and as I came back to more or less where I had been, I hopped off the slowing boat and shoved the hook into the Armco.

A period of epic struggle then commenced ( I was going to say titanic, but there weren't any icebergs, yet). The wind was blowing straight off the towpath, and Sanity really, really wanted to go and see if there were any swans in the reeds on the other side of the Wide.

I managed to get her so that the bow was touching the bank and the stern only about six feet out from it. I tied the centreline to the piling hook, and went and deployed the bowline through its piling chain. Then I got back on the boat, walked through to the stern and motored it in.

It's in these circumstances that it's good to have confidence in your lines and the knots you've used to tie them. Once the stern was against the bank I leapt off, stern line and piling chain in hand. Having managed to get the chain secured to the Armco and the line through it, only having to stop twice to haul the stern back in, I dropped a clove hitch onto a stern dolly and heaved a sigh of relief. I wasn't finished yet, but at least the situation was now well under control.

Fenders were clipped to the gunwales, the bowline adjusted and finally the stern line hauled in again and tied properly. The main risk in all this, apart from putting your back out, obviously, is to your fingers. It's essential not to let them get into any of the loops as you tie off the ropes. Get it wrong, and you risk being left short handed.

One other boater's dodge I used is worth mentioning: when hauling in the boat, having got the line through a piling hook or ring or whatever, it's easier to hold the line in your left hand and pull up with your right on the rope where it runs from the hook or ring to the boat, as if you were pulling a bowstring. Then, as you let go, pull the rope thus gained through the ring with your left hand. Repeat apparently endlessly and you will haul the boat in to the bank more effectively than just pulling straight on the rope.

Having done all this, and tottered about tidying up inside, I went to check the email and found that, unlike last time, I was still on a slow, green connection. After lunch, I experimented moving the laptop so that the modem was in the side hatches rather than the study porthole, and got a fast, blue connection.

With T-mobile, it seems that the further west you tie on Tixall, the better the connection will be. I wasn't going to move the boat again today, but thought that I would do so tomorrow if the wind had dropped but the ice hadn't yet appeared.

When I came to do this blog post, however, at half three, the connection has speeded up with the modem in its usual place, so I'll see what it's like tomorrow before making a decision about moving .

As may be imagined, I have had a quiet time since, chatting to Elanor on the phone a couple of times (she's buying a new bathroom) and buying a couple of ebooks (pause for Sheila to have a fit – her problem is she hasn't taken the codes for checking the online bank accounts away with her, so she's only got my word for what I'm spending, hee, hee).

In fact, it's the other two books in the Maria V. Snyder "Study" series, the first of which came bundled with the Sony Reader, and they were a swingeing £5 each, so not bad, I reckon, in recompense for doing without her company for another whole week.

This post has gone on long enough. It's the last day of the month, so I'm going to have a shower – see you in Feb.

One day sleet, next day caching

28th & 29th October

Yesterday was one of those "challenging" days, boating wise, in fact it was pretty dire. The weather started cold and swiftly deteriorated to wet sleet and wind. I know I've often said that there's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing for the conditions, but this was a bit ridiculous.

Nonetheless, we wanted to shop in Rugeley and move on to Wolseley, so I got all togged up in a fleece, woolly hat and waterproof outers and started out. It was certainly one of those days when the Squirrel earned its keep, burning steadily away so that whenever one of us retreated below, there was that wonderful warm glow as soon as you got inside.

On arrival at Rugeley we had a coffee before setting out to shop. There's a branch of Seconds Ahead here which supplied us with replacement night attire at a very reasonable price, and we got everything else we wanted in Morrisons.

By now it was half eleven, so rather than boat off straight away, we took some time to put the shopping away and then had an early lunch. Then it was on through the sleet to find a mooring at Wolseley, which we made by two o'clock.

A quiet afternoon followed: the internet connection isn't too good here, but it's reasonably stable, just GPRS slow. It means that email could be checked, and a bit of web browsing done as long as you weren't in a hurry. Time was also taken to enjoy reading in front of the fire.

After the mad social whirl of Alrewas it was great to be quiet for a while.

Today dawned in very different mode. The sky had cleared overnight, and a strong frost had penetrated the Houdini surround, so that it was white on the brass frame. The Eberspacher did its stuff, and the Squirrel was soon burning well, so it wasn't too painful getting up, especially as we weren't in a hurry, and could afford to loaf in bed with cups of tea until the room temperatures had risen a bit.

It has to be admitted that the Houdini dripped rather a lot as the frost melted, but nothing that we couldn't cope with.

By nine we were setting off in search of our first geocache, enticingly named Retirement Plan – Tuesdays (Gardening). We found it quite quickly, in the grounds of the Wyevale Garden Centre, which was nice; we're seemingly getting the hang of the basics of this game.

Thus encouraged, we attempted Tarka Chance, not far away in the Wolseley Centre Staffordshire Nature Reserve. This is a multicache, that is you have to find some intermediate places before going on to the main location. In this case, the intermediates were virtual caches; nothing placed there, you just had to follow treasure hunt type clues, like counting the steps or noting the number on a plate on a tree, so as to use the resulting figures to complete the coordinates of the final location.

Having done this, we were able to walk straight to that position and find the cache, thereby generating an enormous sense of achievement. It continued to be a glorious day into the bargain, so we took a bit more time to wander round the reserve before falling back on Sanity for a mug of coffee.

For the rest of the day we've been doing stuff on board. My tipcat is growing steadily, and hopefully it won't be too long before it's ready to put in place. This will liberate the existing sad and squashed beast, which will be cannibalised for its attachment chains to use in the next new fender.

Tomorrow we'll go on a bit further to Great Haywood, where more geocaches await our attention.

Boating from home to home

28th & 29th September

On a misty morning yesterday we set off at half eight for Great Haywood or points south of there.

Aston, Sandon, Weston and Hoo Mill locks went by, Sheila steering and I working the locks. We crossed with other boats at all of them, and had to queue at a couple. The cut is quite busy at this time of year. It always used to be our favourite slot – the schools are back, there's a good chance of fine weather and there's still enough daylight for a decent cruise each day.

In this context, it's noteworthy that Stone Canal Cruising had had all their boats out last week, and had them all booked out for the next two as well, including one hire of six weeks.

The weather was in fact quite damp yesterday, so I spent the time between locks down below, reading and surfing the net, as you do. It's a hard life, being retired!

The other thing that struck me as we went along was the way in which the canal system falls into chunks in my mind. Coming through Harecastle means that you feel in a very different part of the world to the canals of Cheshire to the north, and similarly, though with less reason, passing Great Haywood has the same effect.

There are two areas that feel like home to me now, the one that we've just left around Poynton where Sanity was born, and the one round Alrewas to which we're headed, because Elanor lives near there, and we are back there so regularly for the medical and dental stuff.

We got to Great Haywood just in nice time for lunch, so stopped on the moorings before the water point to eat it. After, we had to hang about for a bit to get onto the service moorings, then watered and started a wash load before setting off again for Wolseley.

Another short wait took us through Colwich Lock, and we tied in our usual spot at Wolseley for the night.

Boats continued to pass to and fro, some stopping near us. One such did so whilst I was in the shower. I first heard a lot of engine revving outside, then a call of "Brace, brace, brace!" from Sheila, shortly followed by a massive clang and lurch as Sanity was struck a glancing blow by the other boat.

By the time I was dried and dressed, it was all over. Sheila came back in having helped the all female and foreign crew of Ophelia, Shakespeare hire boat, tie just behind us.

Complete novices, they'd had a total of twenty minutes instruction from the yard before setting off. First reaction in my mind was to censure the yard for not providing a more thorough training, but then I thought back to 1975 and our first trip.

On that occasion, the instruction consisted of a lecture addressed to all the hirers together, gathered round the stern of the largest boat going out (ours, but that's another story). It covered starting and stopping the engine, how to steer, and good advice to take the right angle turn at the first junction by coming to a stop in the entrance and then putting the helm over and revving up.

We'd also had a guided tour of our boat ("These are the wine glasses; all the hire boats are putting them on this year, so we thought we should as well. This is the toilet bucket, and here's a spade; if you can't find a sanitary station, just push your way through the hedge into a field and dig a hole.")

I guess expectations have risen in lots of ways since those days.

Today we had another relaxed start at half eight, and in less than an hour were in Rugeley. A trip to Wilkinson's and Morrison's was followed by a coffee on board before joining the melée on the cut.

South of Rugeley the canal gets very narrow in places, especially through Armitage, and this makes for exciting boating when it's busy. Today was no exception, though thanks to prudent boating (yes, it was me steering before we have any sarky remarks from certain regular readers, you know who you are) and a good look out from Sheila in the bow, we avoided any actual fender to fender confrontations.

We got to Bridge 55 near Kings Bromley marina in time for a slightly late lunch and a quiet afternoon. The Indian Summer seems to be over, with rain this afternoon, and wind and rain forecast for the next few days. This is hard luck on Sheila, whose turn it is to steer tomorrow. First task will be to go into KB for diesel and a pump out, and it's not the easiest of places to manoeuvre in during a rainstorm.

Heading North in the sun

9th & 10th June

Having gone to Will and Jane's for dinner on Sunday night, it was well past our usual bedtime before we were back on the boat, but nonetheless and with amazing fortitude we got up early to be boating by 7.30.

The reasoning for this, according to Sheila (who as steerer for the day made the decision) was to get well on with the Fradley locks before it got too hot and too busy. This was a good theory, I must admit, but by the time we'd worked down Bagnall Lock, and She had winded below and come up again, there was a fair bit of traffic about already.

It also got very hot very quickly, so it was a case of taking it steady and accepting that no records were going to be broken for the run from Alrewas to King's Bromley.

It actually made for very pleasant boating. Although there were a fair number of novices around (both hirers and privateers) almost everyone seemed to be in a good mood, so we just plodded steadily upwards through Common, Hunts, Keepers, Junction, Middle and Shade House. It was only at Woodend that we actually had to queue for a significant time, and Sheila took advantage of this to start a washload, which was virtually finished doing the water heating bit by the time she needed the engine for motive purposes again.

The only downside was that Nemesis struck me down for making a mock of Graeme the other day. When last he rang, he described having to push his bike three miles home after getting a puncture (despite Kevlar reinforced tyres what's more). He admitted that when he came to do the repair, he realised that previously he'd been sticking the wrong side of the patch to the glue (no Graeme, not the rough side, peel the backing off the smooth side and use that.)

I set out to ride our folder from Bagnall to Common, but instantly got that "I'm riding up a steep hill" feeling, and on investigation found that there was no air at all in the back tyre. After lunch I took the wheel off the bike and the tyre off the wheel. There was no obvious hole in the inner tube, and immersion in a bucket of canal water finally found a leaking seam right by the valve.

It was an absolute pain of a situation to get a patch on, especially as the weather was now so hot the rubber solution was drying as soon as you put it on the inner tube, so that by the time I'd got the stupid backing paper off the patch I had to put more solution on the tube, and the patch then skidded about instead of sticking quickly.

Finally got it all done and wrestled the wheel back onto the bike. Rear wheels are always more of a hassle on a derailleur geared bike as the gear change mech gets in the way, and everything has to be lined up just so or the chain will jump off the cogs when you change gear.

In addition, handling the spanners had become an exercise in masochism, as they'd been lying in the sun getting fiercely hot. Sheila, who thought I'd been a bit harsh with Graeme, helpfully said, as I squealed and dropped yet another ring spanner, "You should have put the tool box in the shade."

Time alone will tell if the repair will hold air, of course. If not, I guess it's new inner tube time.

On the way to a mooring by King's Bromley Marina (there's some good Armco between the marina entrance and bridge 55) we passed Delft, Braidbar number 29, going the other way

During the afternoon, I staggered as far as the main road at bridge 54, and walked up it to find the garden centre that's marked on the Pearson's. We've often meant to visit it, but have never done so. It proved to be a fairly basic one, but with a lot of camping and caravanning stuff as well – folding chairs and basic supplies of loo blue and the like, so would make a good source of hose connectors or whatever if you were stuck for something.

The side road from bridge 55 is actually better as a route to it, though – the main road is very busy, and there's not much of a verge to stagger along.

Elanor took advantage of our proximity to her route home from work in Rugeley to stop by in the late afternoon - we'll next see her at Cathy and Graeme's house on the 18th of this month, when we are celebrating Daniel's first birthday.

After all the exertions of the past couple of days, we had an early night, and woke refreshed and raring to go this morning. The weather was now cool and cloudy, but still very pleasant, especially once the sun started breaking through. We've come on through Rugeley (water stop at the Spode House moorings, shop at Morrison's) to tie at Wolseley for the night. Tomorrow, another early start, I think, so as to get up Colwich Lock before the queues start.

We're planning to leave the boat by Stafford Boat Club for our trip to Lincoln next week, so we'll probably spend a couple of days at Great Haywood, and the weekend on Tixall Wide.