Steadily on

It's been another day that went more or less to plan; after a good night's kip, we had a lazy start, setting off down the first two locks at half eight. We tied outside Stone Boat Building just as they were opening up at nine, and bought four bags of Supertherm from them, together with a big bag of kindling.

Then it was tally ho again down to the water point below Star Lock. I left Sheila rigging the hose whilst I nipped into WH Smith's for a paper. On my return, I took the recycling to the bins by the leisure centre – they take everything but plastic, so that's cleared a lot of stuff out.

Recycling is almost the biggest problem with living aboard these days; the opportunities to get rid of it are not getting any more frequent, rather the reverse. Now that most residential places have recycling collections, there's less need for the bins in supermarket car parks or whatever, and you end up boating about with carrier bags full of the stuff.

C&RT are slowly starting to provide recycling skips at their domestic rubbish points, but it's by no means invariable yet. Sue's No Problem site has a page for recycling centres here.

As we were filling the water tank, there was a group of kids being inducted into the mysteries of canoeing. In fact, they were in two groups, one lot in two person Canadians and the other in slalom type bats. We managed to pass both sets without incident; they were being very expertly instructed which was good to see.

By gone eleven we'd got down Aston Lock and were heading along that pleasant bit of rural canal that comes between Stone and Great Haywood. Our original thought had been to stop at Weston, but time was getting on, so we've settled for the peace of the towpath between Bridges 85 and 86.

Off we go again

Thinking that Stone Boat Building opened at nine this morning, we aimed to be away a bit after eight, so as to stop on the water point below Newcastle Road Lock and fill up, then patronise SBB during or after. The first part of this went just fine; we followed a "Ginger" boat (that is, one from Stone Canal Cruising) down the two locks, and found the water point free.

It appears to be tediously positioned, where the lock landing ought to be, until you realise that accessing the lock from there would quite hard, owing to the bend in the line of the canal. After I'd nipped off to the Co-op to get a paper, I took the folding trolley to SBB, two bags of solid fuel being the main requirement.

They don't open until ten.

/floor

Mind you, it was now twenty past nine, and the tank was not yet full, so we just waited until we'd got it brimful and pulled onto the shop mooring to wait. When they opened, we were able to get the fuel (Excel at £10.50 for 25 kg), and some more Jabsco toilet cleaner, which is proving very successful when used every few days. What wasn't available were the paints we'd ordered (not until Monday) nor any kindling.

Heigh ho, we'll have to persuade Elanor she wants to visit Stone next Saturday.

Setting out again, we had a trouble free run down the final Stone locks, and stopped on the VM below to offload the recycling. Then on we went, washing machine doing its thing, down Aston Lock and on into the countryside. By ten to twelve, the washload was in rinse mode, the wind was getting up and we were feeling hungry.

So we've stopped for the night just below Bridge 86, in the middle of the countryside. It's a very nice location, though a touch shallow; we had to try a couple of places before we could get reasonably close to the bank, and Sanity Again is showing a tendency to lean over from time to time, especially as boats zoom past.

A bit of foraging along the towpath got enough small stuff to use as kindling for a couple of days, as well as a larger chunk of wood. We've been able to relax in the sun this afternoon, or rather, looking at the sun through the portholes, as the wind is still very chilly, and it's just come on to rain.

Tomorrow, we'll carry on through Sandon, Weston, Hoo Mill, Haywood and Colwich, before stopping either at Wolseley Bridge or beyond Bridge 69.