Sitting out the rain

It did indeed rain a great deal this morning, so we did well to stay put. We pottered about in the boat until half eleven, by which time the rain had largely cleared away, when we set out and walked to Morrisons via the town centre. There was a street market in progress, but our main interest was the chocolate shop which had sadly disappeared, boo.

We had lunch at Morrisons, thereby both giving me a break from cooking tonight and us a respite before shopping and walking back.

It’s been a quiet afternoon, so there’s not a lot more to say. One of the things I did this morning was a piece about judging the riskiness of moorings spots, stimulated by a thread on the subject over on CWDF. I’ll include it here so that you all don't feel too short changed today ;)

Nowhere is completely safe, of course, odd things have happened in even the most secluded spots, but there are undoubtedly safer and less safe places to tie up. In addition, a place that is ok for a quick shopping stop may not be good for leaving your precious craft unattended for a week. It’s important not to get hung up on these issues or boating will cease to be a pleasure – in addition, attitudes to risk vary from person to person and those who are of a robust mentality should not decry those of us of a more nervous disposition, nor should we who show wise caution in our choices of overnight mooring deride those for whom being untied is all part of the challenge of boating.

Even in the riskiest locations, chances are that a night can be spent unmolested – there’s probably never more than a 5% chance of trouble in any but the dodgiest spots. In addition, these things go in bursts and the dangers of a location change from year to year, partly with shifting fashions amongst the local youth and partly as a result of campaigns to improve safety such as Canal Watch or just extra police or navigation authority attention.

Danger signs to watch for are (in no particular order)

Graffiti
No other boats moored nearby
Moored boats but with protective covers over the windows
Litter, especially drinks cans or syringes
Local knowledge that the location is on a walking route to and from the town centre or local pubs and clubs
Large housing estates alongside the water or close by

Finally, perception is everything. A bad experience in a spot may be enough to persuade you to avoid it in future. There is nothing worse than fretfully lying in bed in the small hours listening for suspicious sounds outside.

Location:Market Drayton

A long morning's cruise

We started a bit later this morning – it was 6.45 before Sheila started off. I’m not sure quite why we felt more relaxed about it, as we knew that, if anything, we had rather more to do to get to Market Drayton. As it happened, it was quite a bit more to do, for two reasons. The first was that curse of the Shroppie, the online mooring. I manage to forget in between times just how frustrating the endless lines of offside boats are.

I know boating isn't about dashing around, far from it, but passing mile after mile of usually rather boring looking boats at 2 mph is just plain dull. It doesn't help that the long straights which Telford’s cut and fill techniques made possible make it a much less interesting canal to steer, just as motorways are inherently less interesting than winding country roads (and are built with those selfsame cut and fill techniques, of course).

The deep cuttings are the only relief from the boredom, frankly. The spectacular embankments must have been too, once upon a time, but are now so tree shrouded you need the map in front of you to remind you that you are up to 80 feet in the air.

The other source of delay came right at the end of the morning in the shape of Tyrley locks. We were pleasantly surprised not to find a queue at the top, but there was sufficient traffic up and down to make everything a bit slow, so that we took well over an hour for five locks. There was one volockie on, but he was staying at the second lock down, presumably because its top gate was leaking like a sieve. I’m not altogether sorry he stayed there – he was a bit gung ho winding the bottom paddles and certainly didn’t check with me as steerer before he did so. In a 70’ boat, that’s not good practice.

We finally got moored on the aqueduct VMs a little before one and flung ourselves on our lunch. Having rested and recovered a bit, we made an expedition to the Aldi that I recalled not far from the Morrisons. Actually, it turned out to be a Lidl, but as we said, aldigether it makes lidl difference.

Apparently, there’s a canal festival in Audlem this coming weekend and the moorings are already filling with ex-working boats, steamers and the like, so we need to think about cruising strategy when we leave here. We’re staying put for tomorrow, anyway, whilst the storm blows through.

Location:Market Drayton

Down we go

After last night's indulgence, I'm surprised we've not sunk, but in fact we've just started the descent towards the Cheshire Plain. Considering that this canal is now called the Shropshire Union, remarkably little of it is actually in Shropshire. We've not long left Staffordshire (for the second time) and will shortly be in Cheshire. The reason is, of course, that this is actually the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal and was just one component, albeit the principal one, of the amalgamation of canals, including the Welsh Canal and the Chester Canal, which were collectively called the Shropshire Union.

Come to think of it, the "Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal" doesn't actually reach either Birmingham or Liverpool...

I'm probably rambling on like this because I'm still digesting last night's grub. We had a very good evening in the Wharf Tavern, excellent beer including Joule's Pale Ale and their Green Monkey lager which was good enough for Sheila to guess that it was a continental beer. The food was indeed freshly cooked and the banana split would have done the two of us, though Sheila's sundae looked like it would have too.

(John C, if you are passing that way, you will particularly like the quality of service we received.)

An eight o'clock start saw us soon chugging through Woodseaves cutting, the most dramatic on the route, indeed probably one of the most dramatic on the system, steep sided and narrow. CRT have done some sterling work with gabions and concrete filled sandbags to make it more secure and Sheila had little trouble steering through, though the northern half, which bends, always causes anxiety, there being little room to pass another boat.

This is a good reason to do it first thing, before the boats which have moored overnight in Market Drayton have made it up Tyrley Locks. We followed a boat down Tyrley and crossed with boats coming up for the last two. There was plenty of room here at Drayton when we arrived just after ten, though it's all filled up now.

After coffee, we staggered down the road as far as what used to be the Netto and is now a small Asda. Not our favourite store, but the others are much further away, so it had to do. We'll get some more supplies in Audlem the day after tomorrow, and then probably a trip to Morrisons in Nantwich in due course.

Tomorrow, the plan is a half seven start, down Adderley and the top two of Audlem.

 

A good run to Drayton

What a difference half an inch can make!  That's the amount I moved the prop yesterday, and it's entirely restored Sanity Again's performance. The water flow must just not have been reaching the centre of the prop before, whereas it is now, so the whole thing feels more relaxed and less strained, and she's doing her usual 1.9 - 2.2 mph at tickover again.

I did a check of the coupling this afternoon, and it's still nice and tight, so my efforts hanging upside down in the engine hole have paid off.

We made an early start just before seven this morning (no thugs bawling abuse at us this time, I'm pleased to say), and breakfasted on the move. If it wasn't for all the offside moorings, the run from Norbury to Market Drayton would be one of the best. It's still pretty good, but there are now continuous lines of moored boats from the end of Grub Street cutting to the start of Shebdon embankment, necessitating a lot of slow boating. I know canals are supposed to be relaxed, but the difference between 2 mph and 3 mph is that it takes three hours to do six miles, not two, and that adds up over a long run like today's.

It also rained quite a lot for the first half, which I could have done without, but we made it through, and the weather since has been much more pleasant.

We got to Drayton at half eleven, had lunch and then shopped for bits and pieces. One thing missing here is a butchers; hopefully we'll get some decent meat from the farm shop stall at the top of Adderley flight tomorrow.

A good couple of days boating, plus a slight disappointment

We've had a good two days, though I couldn't blog yesterday as the 3 signal at Goldstone Wharf was very off and on, and mostly off. We called at Norbury Junction where they not only kept their promise to give us a free pump out after we'd grumbled about them scratching our nice new blacking coming off the dock, but did one of the best we've ever had.

Truly, they are nice people there.

In the afternoon, we made a start on cleaning the front end of the boat by scrubbing the underside of one side of the cratch cover, but otherwise rather took it easy. I finished the first draft of my paper about the IWA Festival, and I've emailed it to a select few for their comments.

Today, we had the passage of Woodseaves Cutting, and Tyrley Locks to negotiate:

Prehistoric Woodseaves

It always feels quite creepy in the depths of this cutting. The heron, which has a paleontological look to it, seems the most appropriate bird to spot in here, and when Sheila said she'd seen a big raptor flying across into the trees, I was quite prepared for a pterodactyl to peer out at me.

We had a brief and hollow laugh at the sign at the entrance to the cutting, which reads "Danger bank erosion. Take care." There's a few of us with reduced savings pots who will heartily agree…

/shock

It was a nice run down the locks,with one boat following, and some just starting up as we got to the bottom. There was no problem finding a mooring at Market Drayton, and we've done a couple of largely successful shopping trips. I'd had a repeat prescription posted to the branch of Boots here, and it had arrived this morning.

Unfortunately, when I went to collect, they were out of a couple of the items, including the atenolol, would you believe. I need to go back just now to see if the missing stuff came in on the afternoon delivery; if not, we'll have to spend an extra day here, which is a bit tedious. Drayton is a lovely town, but we want to get on.

To and fro to the shops

It's been a heavy burst of retail therapy today, with another two trips into town, first to Morrisons for more groceries, and then to the town centre. I got a prescription filled at Boots, and we found the home made chocolate shop, Tuesday's, where £11 was spent effortlessly; other visitors to Market Drayton, you have been warned!

Back at the boat, I started the engine whilst we ate lunch, so that things were warmed up enough to run a washload by the time we'd finished. The weather had been very foggy and chilly all morning, but by the time the washing was done, it was another glorious day, ideal for drying.

We'd been forewarned by text, so were not surprised to see Autumn Years and Acen turn up in the early afternoon. We've had one good old natter already, and Carolann and Graham, and Jo and John are coming round for a drink tonight. Amongst many other things, we learnt that John is now keeping a blog, though I note from my first viewing of it that he's a bit unsure about the spelling of Jo's full name ;).

After I've posted this, Sheila is going to cut my hair, giving me time to get a shower and to cook and eat dinner before our guests arrive.

Market Drayton once more

To my surprise, it's over three years since we were last here, when we had an entertaining time in the cold weather, with a bit of ice floating around (ha!). It's one of our favourite canalside towns, with loads of facilities and good moorings.

Thanks to the the hour going on this morning, we were able to get up and get going by eight without feeling we'd been lazing around.

It was Sheila's turn to steer, and I can't say I was sorry, as the cold easterly wind continued to make life quite bracing on the back. In these circumstances, we go for the multilayered look these days; woolly jumper, fleece sleeveless gilet, fleece jacket and then a waterproof over it all, more to keep the wind out than because we were expecting precipitation.

I took over from time to time to let her go below and thaw out a bit; this is where the combination of the Squirrel warming the saloon and the engine supplied central heating warming the back of the boat really makes a difference.

We had a bit of a fright at Woodseaves; Sheila had lined up to go through the first bridge when a green painted boat popped out from behind the abutment and occasioned much reversing and swinging about to get out of their way. It was the only boat we saw in the cutting, however, so could have been much worse. We scraped past the site of the rockfall waiting to be cleared away – there's a bit underwater between the towpath and the boom which Sanity Again just got over.

Once clear of the cutting, we chugged on to the top of Tyrley and followed the ex-Ownerships boat Sandpiper down the flight. We've both moored on the first set of visitor moorings in MD, the ones on the embankment. This gives a longer walk to Morrisons, but is much quieter than the ones further along.

By now it was officially lunchtime, so I made the remaining two rolls from yesterday into Ben Gunn's favourite meal, cheese on toast, and we had a mug of soup with it. This restored us sufficiently to walk to Morrisons and get a couple of pasties for part 2 of lunch.

Since then, I've submitted our census form online, and taken phone calls from Andrew Denny at Waterways World, and from Elanor.

Andrew tells me, with some justified irritation, that the business about the HS2 route intersecting with various bits of canal has been being researched by him for several weeks now, hence the very complete FOI reply that Chris Wells got out of BW. Because Chris has been able to put it out on his blog, Andrew's piece in next month's WW will look as if he's lifted it from Chris, when in effect it's the other way round.

It's a hard life, though the fact that the Granny Buttons blog used to run stories like this all the time makes it something of a poacher turned gamekeeper situation.

Elanor filled me in on Sally's first encounter with the shower. Whilst rummaging in her favourite field last evening, Sally made a misjudgment about wading in a pond, and fell in. She came back to Elanor covered on pond slime, and had to be showered off when they got home. Sally didn't appreciate this; the shower is over the bath, and Elanor described her standing in the bath with her head hanging over the side in abject despair.

Elanor doesn't have any dog shampoo in the house at the moment, so Sally is still a little odiferous, not helped by the fact that she also found the very old remains of both a goose and a swan, and scoffed some of the bones from both.

We're going to stay here tomorrow, stocking up and loafing about, then we'll probably amble on to Nantwich.

Two more days at Drayton, then away!

18th & 19th February

My, but that was a cold night! We were indeed iced in on Monday morning, although there were open patches of water about as well.

There was also a lot of ice on the inside of the Houdini, which became a bit of a problem, as we'd set the Eberspacher to come on automatically (saves me hopping shivering out of bed to push the button). As we lay there. listening to the welcome roar, the ice started to melt and drip onto the bed.

We keep an old cycle cape to cover the bed under these circs (ex free gift from RCR the other year – useless as a cycle cape, but great for this purpose, and for using as a hairdresser's cape when cutting hair) so I had to pop out of bed anyway. Once out, I went through and relit the Squirrel and made a cup of tea.

Once actually up and about (some time later) we had breakfast and did yet another shopping trip before lunch. Regular readers must wonder why so much shopping at the moment. The thing is that once we leave here, we're going to wander down the rest of the Shroppie – Norbury Junction, Gnosall, Wheaton Aston, through to Brewood when the stoppage comes off at WA – and there are no further serious shopping opportunities.

We'll use local stores as usual for milk and the like, but anything more than that is out of the question. Then we're going down to Kinver, before backtracking to Great Haywood, so the next town of any size will be Rugeley in about three weeks time.

After lunch we went through onto the water point, filled right up, and then winded with care. There was ice still in the winding hole, and a couple of cruisers, one GRP, one wood, at the far end, and I didn't want to shove sharp edged sheets of ice into their delicate sides.

The task was made a little more interesting by Blue Crystal, who'd chosen to spend the night moored across the end of the hole, on a mooring clearly marked "Water Point only". No excuse, really – there's loads of room at Drayton at the moment.

After these exertions, we went back onto the mooring through the bridge for one last night (hopefully) and had a quiet afternoon.

Today was cold, misty and murky at the start, but strangely the cut was free of ice. We went into town yet again, and had a really successful last session. The post we needed had turned up at the PO, and we found things like more thermal socks (Seconds Ahead), secondary double glazing film to experiment with next year (Homebase) and even creamed coconut block (not in Morrisons or Lidl, but 50p, would you believe, in a little independent health food store).

Back at the boat, Sheila dealt with the finance stuff while I made a coffee, and then I shot into town to post the result (of the finance stuff, not the coffee).

Then we had a quick lunch, and by one o'clock we were off again, heading up Tyrley Locks. As we approached, an OwnerShips boat, Inglewood, came down, so we had the flight with us all the way. This meant it was just two o'clock when we got to the top, so we came on through Woodseaves cutting on a glorious winter's afternoon.

There were serious icicles hanging down the rock side in places, and the sun struck through the branches of the overhanging trees in spectacular style.

Moored at Goldstone Wharf, we had a cup of tea whilst I wrestled with the internet connection. It's not good here, and prone to cause strange glitches in Mail and Firefox. On one occasion nothing would do but to do a cold reboot, i.e. shut it all down and start again from scratch. As a Mac user, I'm not used to having to resort to such drastic measures – it quite reminds me of my Windows days :-}

Tomorrow we'll probably move on to Norbury Junction for a couple of days, then to Gnosall for the weekend.

Back to Drayton, and a sealing task

16th & 17th February

The morning dawned bright and cold once more. The night before we'd had a post call from Elanor which had revealed some problems with a couple of finance things, such that we needed to get the relevant letters sent on to us. The obvious address to use was Market Drayton PO, but at 5 o'clock they weren't answering their phone to confirm that they accept Poste Restante.

Accordingly, we tried again at 9, but still no joy. Thinking that perhaps they didn't open until 9.30, we set off on the return trip to Drayton, Sheila steering and me trying to ring from time to time. We'd also had some trouble with the internet connection last night, though it had been all right, if slow, before. However, it at least was now working OK – I even downloaded some email and uploaded the last blog as we slid into the depths of Woodseaves cutting.

We got to Tyrley just behind Ysbryd Rhydd (= Free Spirit in Welsh), but they stopped on the water point, only to make the same discovery as ourselves two days ago. This did mean that we passed them and set off down the flight, but it made no odds, as it was against us anyway.

Notwithstanding, we made good time down it, and before 11 we were on the water point in Drayton. Sheila left me with the boat, and set off into Drayton to ask in the PO if they would take a Poste Restante letter.

I'd just finished watering and was reversing Sanity back through the bridge 'ole to moor when she came back, a little out of breath, but with good news (and a newspaper). Having passed this info on to Elanor together with the address of the PO, we had lunch and went back into town for a successful shop for a mixed bag of stuff, including a new warm shirt for me (factory outlet shop), various bits of cleaning stuff (Wilko's) and some silicon sealant (Homebase) as well as some general groceries from the Lidl.

We need the sealant for the shower tray – the current bead is looking a) tired and b) mouldy. I'd been putting the job off, as I hate using sealant, but Sheila volunteered to have a go, which, as it's more like piping with Royal icing than anything else, seemed fair enough.

Today again dawned cold and bright, indeed even colder and brighter if anything. The cut wasn't actually frozen across, but there were thin sheets of ice drifting down. As we weren't planning to boat anywhere, we decided to skip our usual argument about whether such conditions would damage the blacking, and got on with getting breakfast.

Before setting off to shop again, we took it in turns to strip out the old sealant from around the shower tray. It proved to be well stuck on, so hadn't been leaking, at least, but it was good to get rid of the nasty black mould that seems to form even when we are punctilious about drying off the walls and tray of the shower after every use.

After a trip to Morrisons, we had lunch and then resealed the tray, Sheila wielding the gun, and me being the mate, handing things to her and taking them off her. It looks much better for the work, though Sanity filled with the niff of the acetic acid that is given off as the sealant cures – next time we must do this job in high summer, when we can have all the hatches open to ventilate the boat.

The rest of the afternoon's been taken up with the weekly IT housekeeping, knitting, cooking and running the engine whilst doing a washload.

The forecast is for a freeze again tonight, so it's not clear if we'll get away from here tomorrow. If we can, we'll go back to Adderley for the night and come back on Tuesday, by which time the stuff from Elanor should have arrived at the PO.

A pleasant visit and cruise

14th & 15th February

After several days of very lazy starts, we got up reasonably promptly yesterday, and were away by 9.30. Tyrley Locks appear almost as soon as you've left Market Drayton behind, and they were with us, so we made short work of the five.

We'd planned to top up the water at the service point above the top lock, but after we'd put the hose out, the tap proved to be dry. There was no notice warning of a problem, so later in the day I emailed BW to ask if they knew it was out of action.

Then there was the steady chug through Woodseaves cutting. It was especially dank and gloomy on a cool grey day – we'd wondered about coming back this way with Jennie and John who are visiting today, but decided going on would be better.

Goldstone Wharf was reached in nice time for lunch. The pub here, the Wharf Tavern, had been recommended by a number of authorities, and we were pleased to see it was serving lunch during the week. A quiet afternoon followed – I emailed BW about the Tyrley water point, and sent a letter to Waterways World on the subject of BW's policy with regard to self pump out at their sanitary stations, but at the time of blogging haven't heard anything back from either.

Today we made another decent start (well, by 9 o'clock, anyway) so as to get Sanity looking nice and tidy for our visitors. It was a dull, cold morning, but not so windy as had been forecast, which was something.

Jennie and John turned up just before their expected time of 11, and we had a pleasant chug to Soudley and back, with the guests taking it in turn to steer.

The Wharf then lived up to its advance billing – a very decent pint of Bombardier, and excellent food at a reasonable price. Back at the boat we had a coffee before Jennie and John set off home.

For some reason we then sat around trying not to doze off (in my case successfully). It's been a quiet and relaxing pair of days – brighter weather is forecast for the weekend, but with a risk of the cut icing up, so we'll go back to Drayton tomorrow.

Recovered from our exertions, we go on to Market Drayton

12th & 13th February

Yesterday was another case of a seriously lazy start, as we'd decided to stay another day at the top of Adderley, enjoying the fine but cold weather in the morning. We dismantled and cut up for firewood the louvre door we hauled out of the cut some time ago.

The engine was run during the morning, allowing another washload to be processed. By the time we'd done all this, any lingering mist had burnt off, and it was becoming positively warm – warm enough, in fact, to let us sit out on the towpath, and indeed eat lunch out there.

The boat tied behind us was deploying a solar panel, and the guy off it told us that he was getting 4 amps into his batteries in these conditions, and would expect to get 6 in the summer.

This led Sheila to do some rough calculations on the basis of say £1500 for purchasing and installing such a large panel, and then saving between one and 1.5 hours engine running every day. It's very rough stuff, but the indications are that the installation would pay for itself in about 12 years.

With the high demand our fridge freezer makes on the batteries, we would never get to a point where we didn't feel the need to run the engine most days, but a boat with simpler electrics might well. I understand that the panel may be expected to have a life of around 20 years, so it is a long term but feasible proposition on economics alone, in addition to the reduction in hassle.

Note, however, that the production of solar panels itself results in a lot of CO2, so the environmental case is by no means as straightforward.

After lunch we took a walk along the towpath, just to aid digestion and enjoy the amazing weather.

Today was another slow start on a frosty but sunny morning. By 10.15 we were underway, heading for Market Drayton to shop and get water. First call was the Victoria Wharf and coal yard, where we bought five bags of Excel at £6.95 a bag. Excel isn't my favourite fuel, but it's good to have some reserve on the roof – we can expect to be using the stove for another few weeks at least, and we were down to the last two bags of PureHeat.

On the way we passed a small mystery, a boat called Hannah, whose signwriting described it as built by Les Allen but painted by Braidbar. We've never seen a boat claiming to be painted by Braidbar before – must check it out with the Braidbar Owners list.

After mooring on the 5 day moorings just north of the bypass bridge, we did the shopping, lunching and shopping routine. It's a decent walk (about 10 minutes) to the Morrisons from those moorings, much better than from the recommended town moorings further on.

All this being done, we decided to go onto the water point this afternoon, and then moor on the visitor moorings the other side of town, by the playing fields and further away from the road noise of the bypass.