Weston on Trent and onwards

 Once again I have left a pretty big gap between posts - my bad!

Above Weston on Trent was a lovely mooring. Once more, we cruised in the rain - David and I left Weston on Trent early to avoid as much of it as we could - we were pretty quiet (a boat behind and the Jameisons in front) but even so the IJs were out of bed and poised at the duck hatch to take photos of our departure. Irene was decently clad with a dressing gown on, Ian was not - underwear only and only one piece of underwear. Blue if I recall...

Sunrise - a sure sign we were due for rain. But the sky looked beautiful.

And we are off in the early morning light.

I only have two warm jerseys over here - that one and my dad's one.  That's why I seem to always be wearing the same clothes - because I am! I didn't realise it was going to be so cold this month of summer! Admittedly though it was about 6am when this photo was taken - never a particularly warm part of the day!

Beautiful brickwork - built by artisans.

I reckon our early departures have inspired 2IJ, or otherwise they have decided if they can't beat us they should join us, because they weren't far behind us. Admittedly, even though their boat is super quiet, and even though Irene is expert at cruising slowly to a halt as she moors (not yet within my skillset except as a fluke event) I am thinking their cruising speed may be a bit faster than ours.

Anyway Stone is a lovely place to boat through and has some very lovely homes on its outskirts.

See what I mean? I think this was near Stone, but am not sure.

And I really liked this one and its roses. So nice to plant a canal side garden even you cannot actually see it from inside your property!

See what I mean?

I am not sure where this was, but it tickled me that the cow seemed to be guiltily hiding from my gaze...

Aston Lock top gates are very leaky!

 

Looking back from Aston Lock. The Aston Marina is off to the left - it is very very large. I remember mooring above this lock with Olek at one time and he played on the wide towpath with battery powered car that I think he bought with a gift of cash from Lesley.

I faffed a bit about where to moor. Someone had told Ian that above Lime Kiln Lock which used to be a good place had been empty when they came through because people had been put off by poorly behaved young people - drugs etc. As we cruised slowly past, I struggled to marry that info with the lovely homes beside the canal - I couldn't imagine the homeowners sitting still for such antisocial behaviour.

However, I walked on through the bridge and saw a very nice length of canal - a park behind and a lovely wee housing estate across the water.

So the second or third WhatsApp message to Ian to change my mind once more ...

David and I moored up and I got out the loppers - one of the bugbears we have about the canal towpaths this year is how overgrown they have been allowed to become. This patch wasn't too bad, but it needed remediation. So I lopped off a boat length of nettles, cowparsley or some other tall white seed-headed plant, dock and thistles, and something else with prickles that had rose bush shaped leaves. And some long grass and small reeds.

There, that will make it nice for the 2IJs...

And then, right on cue once again, just as the 2IJs arrived, the rain came down. Timing is everything, I reckon.

While Irene and I cooked dinner (leftover Thai green veg curry for starter and stirfried noodles and veg for main) Ian had a look at our engine. We had been worried that the idling revs were very low and by the vibrations the engine made in tickover were loud. Ian of course had the tools to verify the revs. It involved a piece of reflective tape stuck on the wheel below his right hand and a little techie gadget that measured the times the reflection went past the gadget - a bit like measuring heart rate, I guess.

Ian declared the alternator belt was fraying, so he changed it for a spare one we had.

 

Irene is dousing the stirfry with hoisin sauce - she did have to bring that with her as we didn't have any - rectified in my last shopping expedition.

He fits down in that engine bay very well.

David was in charge of starting and stopping the engine for Ian's checks

More food , more card games, another game of Mexican Train, and another early night. You can see why I struggle to keep up with blogging!

When we played Up and Down the River and got to the Blind round, Irene refused to state her guess of the tricks she would take until she'd been able to wave her hands over her cards in seance fashion. So her cards were withheld and she had to guess without spiritual nonsense! That's her cards on the seat.

And the following day it was on to Stoke on Trent. I had phoned Black Prince at Etruria to organise buying diesel as we were on half a tank and there didn't seem to be anywhere to purchase it up the Caldon. Their facilities area was closed as they are having to retrieve boats that could not get back to base as a lock on Heartbreak Hill was out of action.  If we got there before 9am the guy would still be on site. I optimistically thought we could do it. And then I looked at the map - we would have had to leave about 4am to achieve that, and even then it would be close!

So I called back and set it up for the following day. So a more leisurely trip to Stoke on Trent and on to Etruria. There has been significant building development on the journey - my memory of the area through Trentham (said with a separate t and h here in England rather than the dipthong in NZ) was that the offside was scrubland. But now there's lots of earthworks and septic tanks and survey pegs and concrete pads.

It was quite a long cruise and 2IJ started off at the same time as us - 6.30am. There was rain due later of course!

The section through Stoke is a giant piece of noise pollution - extremely loud road noise and quite disconcerting, I found. Once we got started up the locks we left that behind and it was much more pleasant. 

It was a 10 lock day - more effort for David and Ian than for me and Irene. And the temperature went up and down depending on the wind and wet. 

Irene was already waiting as we ascended one of the locks. I am sure she was in that position for most of them, but in almost all cases there was a bridge obscuring the view.

 

I sent this photo to Barry and Pauline back in NZ. A few years ago we moored under that bridge when we dropped them off from a few days boating with us up and down the Caldon Canal. The Stoke station is nearby. It was a great few days as always with the Fitzgeralds.

It must have been cold - Ian had a lined shirt/jacket on over his usual T-shirt! David had walked on to the next lock wearing his jersey, I was still wearing a camisole, T-shirt, jersey and coat, plus silk scarf...

I've not seen wooden beams in canal walls before! It was the full length of both sides. I wonder why?

Interesting, that!

 

There were moorings above the last lock and we pulled in - not ideal as we were in the shade of trees, but rain was due so sunshine wasn't very likely for keeping the batteries topped up. 

David and I needed a blob so the four of us agreed that we would get together about 4pm and then go to the Toby Carvery for dinner. Unbeknownst to us, while David and I both had a nana nap, 2IJ headed off to the shopping area - Irene needed to sort out a septic toenail. She is such a brave woman - she hadn't complained once!

Dinner was rather nice - I had visions of a carvery not having any vegetarian food, but the menu choices were very good. I had a vege patty with a camembert centre, and David had a mushroom wellington. No dessert as all four of us were desserted out - even though Ian was keen, he was overruled!

So that we were in the right place early, David and I moved over to the services area at Black Prince before 8am. The young man filled the tank with diesel and emptied the poo tank and I handed over the money - happily!

He also told us that because the services area would be closed all day, we could stay on the moorings as long as we liked. We liked till the next morning 😆. But that day, we headed for different destinations on foot. I went off to do grocery shopping and to buy an angle grinder and orbital sander, David went off for something else that I cannot remember.

Before we went out shopping, 2IJ had moored up behind us just before heading to the Carvery for an all you can eat breakfast - not us: we'd had berries and yoghurt instead on the boat. There had been lots of food related overindulgence since we had all got together... And I blame Irene.

When we were both back, David tried to top up our 3 SIM for the router - no joy online, so we googled and found there was a 3 shop about where David had been already (much further away than Morrison's supermarket). But as internet has become a necessity, we bravely went walking again - good heavens, google maps has weird ideas about which routes to send you on when walking! And two different routes on two different phones!

A small colony of Canada Geese near a busy, 4 lane roundabout - they seem to be everywhere in Stoke. As is their poo. They poo on land, not in the water. Well, to be honest, I don't know if they poo in the water; but they certainly poo prolifically on land! And they don't bag and bin it either.

 

We found the 3 shop, bought two new SIMs, one for each of the two remaining months we are here in the UK, and headed back to the boat. 

And while I was making toast for a reviving snack, the gas bottle ran out. I had mentioned to Ian that morning that we had been onboard 3 months and were still on our first bottle. Famous last words, obviously.

I was sitting reading and saw the bow of a trading boat. I raced out and asked if we could pay by card. Yes came the reply. So Rachel reversed up and tied on. David got the empty cyclinder from the gas locker, plastic was exchanged as well as a bit of happy chat.

Rachel bounces along those boards in such a confident manner. She has been working on boats since she left school - first hotel boats and now the Four Counties Fuel boat. Super cool!

Just so you know, I had walked over 14,000 steps and my feet were sore, but hero that I am I still made dinner: marinated salmon, salad and new potatoes. And then I think I collapsed into bed... Later, while David was outside on the phone to Ed, I went and found a mint mini magnum in the freezer. And I didn't share.