Getting South of Stoke

We had a whole half hour’s extra kip last night, and didn’t come to until half six. My cold is on the mend (pauses to sneeze), but Sheila is still suffering something rotten. Still, we were on our way at half seven; it took 45 minutes rather than 30 to get to Etruria Top, but then we made up for it firstly by having most of the locks with us and a boat to cross with at the others and secondly because, thanks to all the water they’re running down off the Macc, the long pound out of Stoke was well up.

This makes it very deep by canal standards, and Sanity Again showed her paces. For some of the time, between the incinerator and Hem Heath, I had to be careful not to break the speed limit of 4 mph.

In consequence, we took almost exactly three and a half hours for the run, tying on the VMs at Wedgwood at eleven.

With the boat secure, I left Sheila recovering slowly in the saloon (it had been her turn to lock)  and got my own exercise walking on to Barlaston village. Here some bread, Staffordshire oatcakes, a lettuce and (from the butcher) chicken fillets, pork chops and a pork pie were obtained.

Oh, and a newspaper.

/wahaha

The oatcakes, pie and lettuce soon played their parts in our lunch, which was followed by a quietish time. Pottering on the net and reading has filled in the afternoon.

It’s not been all wasted, mind. Continuing frustration with Yahoo’s knavish tricks has finally led me to ponder the virtues of a forum or bulletin board for the Braidbar Owners’ Group.

My own web host provider, Dataflame, offers YaBB and phpBB already installed, so I’m gently exploring these as options. I know just a bit about HTML and the like, but I’m by no means a sophisticated user. If we go down this route, it will have to be with something that doesn’t need a lot of fancy work from me.

Tomorrow, we’ll go on to the top of Stone, probably, but the forecast for Sunday and Monday looks pretty dire, with a lot of rain on Sunday and even more wind on Monday. Looks like the equinox is arriving early this year.

We may have to sit tight for a while and then boat on hard to make up the lost time.