Monday 4th August 2008
Location: Little Haywood, Staffordshire, Trent and Mersey Canal
Today: 11 miles, 3 locks. Total distance: 1604 miles. Total locks: 1156
Pulled the pins around 07:00 and moved up through the locks at Fradley Junction in lovely peace and quiet.
Stopped of at Rugeley to do a quick shop at Morrison’s and to buy a new watch at Argos.
My watch strap got caught on one of the cratch cover retaining pins last week while filling up with water. The strap broke and the watch disappeared into the canal. There was little point in trying to retrieve it with the Sea Searcher magnet as the watch was all stainless steel. It was not much of a loss as it was only a cheap Casio and the battery was on it’s last legs.
After lunch we moved on to Wolseley Bridge just south of Little Haywood as we were intending to try out the Indian restaurant that is only a short distance from the bridge. We moored up well away from the visitor moorings as we were intending to run the generator in the evening to run the washing machine. We moored in a spot where we thought we would not end up with any neighbours near us that could be disturbed by the generator.
After mooring, we wandered along to have a look at the Wolseley Arms pub and the Shimla Palace Indian restaurant. After speaking to a local we decided that we would give the Indian a try as she said it was very good.
We returned to the Indian around 18:00 and had a lovely meal there, a very nice building in side and excellent food. The building dates back to 1500. Will definitely eat there again the next time we pass this way.
On returning to the boat around 07:30, we were very surprised to find that another boat had arrived and moored within a couple of feet of our bow (photo below). They had the choice of a good 400 yards or more of empty tow path to moor at but decided that they wanted to be almost touching our bow – we can never understand why folk do this, it is not the first time it has happened and I am sure it won’t be the last. Any way, we fired up the generator as we had planned but as it turned out it didn’t bother them as they spent the rest of the evening at the pub. The washing was over and done with by the time they returned to their boat.
Tuesday 5th
Woke up to rain, the weather forecast got it right for once.
Lit the fire as it is coolish and it helps dry the washing off faster.
We walked with the dogs to a local garage to get the papers. The garage is only a couple of hundred yards along the road from the canal and sells just about everything – there is even a post office in the garage shop.
We will sit it out here for the day as it is a nice spot and we are in no hurry to be anywhere.
The new Casio watch is working better than expected. It picks up the Rugby time signal during the night and re-synchronises itself to the atomic clock. I didn’t expect it to be able to receive the signal inside the boat due to all of the metal work but it did. One of the menus on the watch tells you the last successful synchronisation and it shows that it synchronised successfully at 03:00 this morning. A new toy!!
Had a chat with a lady that lives on a nb with uPVC double glazed windows fitted (photo below). She told us that she was fed up with condensation problems in the winter so had the original metal windows removed and the uPVC ones fitted. She is very pleased with them as they have cured their condensation problems.
Almost touching with hundreds of yards of free mooring space!!
Fradley junction at 07:00
Nice looking pub near Armitage
Speed camera - we didn't trigger it
Dog on a boat moored near by
Great food
Wolseley arms
uPVC windows
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