Paddy has sorted himself out and is now watching where we are going and observing swans and sheep, etc with interest. He has once again been photographed and people are commenting on what a cute chap he is. As long as they are out of reach this is fine!
Paddy story of the day. We were moored at Handsacre and the bank is quite low compared to the bow of the boat. To stop him running out before I got my shoes on this morning, I shortened the lead (you may see where this is going). Once I was ready I opened the canvas and without being prompted he jumped out and disappeared! Straight into the canal as the lead was too short for him to get to the land. Poor chap. He definately hadn't intended an early morning dip and as it wasn't exactly warm I felt very guilty. He had a good rub down and has shown no signs of lasting incapacity.....
We have had a quiet day. The weather is dry but overcast and not exactly warm, so we have travelled about 8 miles or so and only 1 lock and are now moored outside Shugborough Hall near Great Hayward. We are now travelling decidedly northwards and spent some time last night looking at the maps and deciding where (ish) to go. We are continuing on the Trent and Mersey until we reach the Macclesfield Canal and then are going to head off NE to go up it and hopefully visit Congleton where we lived for the final weeks before the boat was ready. After that we are still somewhat undecided and will make the decision nearer the time.
We are more concerned with planning our route so that we can get through Stoke in a day without stopping. Those of you who read the blog last year will remember our somewhat unsavoury experiences there and understand our reluctance to loiter in the vicinity!!!
Halden with daddy Robert just before we left!
Nellie just before we left - expect both to have changed a lot when we next see them at the end of July!
You can just see the height of the water under Monks Bridge in the distance - this is the River Dove and the last time we went through it was just a trickle over mudbanks!
I took this one-handed while navigating through the Fradley Junction set of locks (next one under the bridge). the interesting thing here is the sign saying 'Wool Boat' I hope some of you knitters are reading this as it's dedicated to you! Unfortunately they are now heading down the Coventry and we are going in the opposite direction but they have a web-site and I hope to find them moored at some point in the future.
Nasty right hand bend coming up! Where's the canal I thought?
Turning sharp right!
a bit of reversing here.......
Amost back on the straight and narrow! This is west of Rugeley in case anyone is interested!
We are now on a stretch that we have done once before and are playing the 'was it here we saw...' game. It's suprising how often we can remember small details about places we have gone through such as 'we went to a pub down that road' and 'isn't there a pub up over there?'. hmmmmm
We are going to visit Shugborough Hall tomorrow when it opens at 11 so we are not likely to do much else. We are just below a lock so when we do start out we will get through that and then make a stop at Haywood Junction to fill up with water and pump out the toilet (we didn't do it before we left because John was sure it didn't need it and there was a horrible wind blowing making getting to the pump out a bit tricky!). Not even sure if we'll do that tomorrow or whether we might just stay here - somewhat depends on the state of the larder I feel.
No comments:
Post a Comment