Shiralee Cruise 2011 #14

Wednesday 29th June.

Whilst visiting The Hartley Arms yesterday, in order to celebrate Wifey’s birthday and our 31st anniversary, I noticed some sayings written over the bar. They were so good that I thought I might repeat them here. This is not the first pub we’ve been in that has such things written above the bar, perhaps there should be more of them.

OK. Here we go:

“Best while you have it, use your breath.
There aint no drinking after death”

“It ruins not your eyesight to look on the bright side of life”

And Finally:

“You can’t control the past, but you can ruin a perfectly good present by worrying about the future”

How perfectly true they all are. Have a nice day, we’re off to Brewood and beyond and will soon be on the Staffs. and Worcs. Canal and heading for Stourport and the River Severn.

Thursday 30th June.

After another walk into Wheaton Aston yesterday morning, to collect a prescription and do some more shopping, we headed off into the wild blue yonder of Staffordshire. But first we needed to top up with water and pass through the nearby lock.
On most days, when we leave an overnight mooring, we do so quite early so as to avoid the rush. Yesterday though, due to our visit to the local surgery and shop, we didn’t get away until about 9.15 and, after topping up with water and such, found ourselves in a queue at the lock, which wasted about an hour. However, the trip to our current moorings here at bridge#8, passed without incident, although it did seem like it might rain, but didn’t thank goodness.

This mooring spot is miles from nowhere and yet I am receiving a strong signal on the Internet. Talking of which, I received a message from ‘3’ asking me to give them a call so as to try to resolve my email forwarding problem. I am most grateful for all the jokes and such that I get from Alan and Sandra, but I am unable to forward them to multiple addresses because they all come back as undeliverable. In my Inbox this morning were four such messages from MAELER DEMON, so I will certainly phone ‘3’ later today, assuming of course that my ‘phone signal is strong enough.

After arriving here at about 11.30 yesterday my main job for the day was to set the aerial up for more Wimbledon. The two main events were the men’s quarter finals and turned out to be well worth watching. I think we have women’s quarters and some doubles today, which I may watch but don’t find as enjoyable as the men’s matches, because of the screaming mainly. I really hate that with a passion and, as Alan pointed out the other day, the men don’t do it so why do the women find it necessary. Sharapova is the worst culprit, followed by the Williams sisters, who are both now out of the tournament.

We are staying here at bridge #8 for today and will move on tomorrow. Hopefully I will have this email forwarding sorted by then.

Friday 1st July.

We are still at Bridge 8 and are staying for another day, because we want to be at Wightwick on the Staffs and Worcs Canal for the weekend. This is a place we’ve stopped at before and, according to my wife of 31 years, they have a very good watering hole. Sounds good to meeee!!

Yesterday was a bright, fine day, so we managed to get some work done on the boat. Sheila gave the nearside a good clean, whilst I did some more painting on our push-off pole. We also watched a bit of tennis later in the day.

Today, if it stays dry, I am hoping to finish the pole, which will be a banded colour affair using the same colours as those used to paint Shiralee. It’s looking good so far.

I had a very long conversation with a techie from ‘3’ yesterday, during which he took over my laptop remotely in an attempt to discover why I am unable to forward emails to multiple addresses. After much faffing about, during which, due to the expense of talking on the mobile, I asked him to ‘phone me back, which he did. Goodness knows how much the call has cost me up to that point, on a landline they charge 5.1 pence per minute, blooming cheek!!

Anyway, the upshot of at least ¾ of an hour of chat and investigation was, in all honesty, zilch, nada, nothing, except for him to suggest that the problem might lie with ‘3’s’ policy on spam. Now, back in the mists of time, when I had an account with Demon and living at Westfield in Harlow, I experienced a similar problem, and that was indeed down to spam policy. But I do not believe that forwarding an email to 10 addresses constitutes spam, especially as all the addresses are the same each time.

I now intend to set up a group email list, to which I should be able to forward emails with impunity. Should!! This situation is laughable, or would be if it wasn’t so damned annoying. The technician did suggest that I reduce the number of people I forward to, to, say, just six, and see if that solves the problem. Not good enough. I have now written to Customer Services regarding this problem. All I have to do now is find a post box, which are few and far between out here in the sticks.

Mind you, this is a delightful place to stay for a few days, even if it doesn’t have a pub. Incidentally, the route we have travelled up until Gnosall, has been completely devoid of Kingfishers. But now, thanks to the change in canal banks, which are somewhat higher and consist of earth and bushes, they are quite frequent in their appearances. We’ve also seen a couple of young Herons, which is very encouraging.

Saturday 2nd July.

Today we’ll be off to the Staffs and Worcs Canal and, after topping up at the end of this one, will pass through the shallow lock and turn right. After stopping off at Compton to catch up with some much needed shopping, we’ll moor up for the weekend at Wightwick.

Now, returning to the matter of my forwarding of emails to multiple addresses, I forwarded on yesterday with just seven addresses in it, that too has been returned.

The message I get from Hutchinson’s is as follows:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at ukmrpl004.it.hutchison3g.net.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

Further along in the message is a reference to ‘spam assassin’, whatever that is and is one of the things the techie mentioned when I spoke to him, at great length I might add. This really is becoming a nuisance. I have now sent one to just two addresses this morning. Hopefully, after a bit more effort, I’ll discover just how many I can send.

Yesterday was another fine day, which we partially spent on jobs around the boat. I almost finished painting the pole and also did a bit on the body of the boat. If it continues like this, I’ll wear myself out with work and I’m supposed to be retired.

So, who else is not surprised that Murray was knocked out at the semi-final match? Enough said! One thing may not have escaped everybody else’s attention though. We teach the whole world about sport and other things, they then turn right around and bite us in the nether regions.

Sunday 3rd July.

We left the wild blue yonder at about 07.45 yesterday and, after a stopover at the end of the Shroppie for water, passed through the stop-lock and turned right up the Staffs and Worcs canal. What a difference to the Shroppie, lots of weed and nettles growing along the towpath, which probably deters people from taking a quiet stroll along it. Such a pity.

We made another stopover, this time at Compton, where we called into a mini-market that has been in the same family since 1976, or was it 1972? Anyway, they have resisted being bought out by bigger supermarket chains, and all to the good. Excellent service and products, especially the deli counters. Sadly they had run out of fresh bread by the time we arrived, and we don’t particularly like sliced bread. However, sometimes we find sliced that comes from local bakeries, and this was such a case. We found one of the thick cut loaves which, if we were able to use our toaster, would have been just the ticket. We bought it anyway, if only to save Wifey the job of making one.

Having passed through another three locks we finally arrived at Wightwick – pronounced witick at about 12.30.

The day turned into a rather hot one, which is something I hate and we didn’t get much joy with the TV reception either. Having pointed the aerial in the right direction – the locals point theirs in an either/or situation – we settled down to watch the tennis. But, being surrounded by roads and heavy traffic, the picture kept breaking up. It was only later on when I tried to tune in to ITV, that we found we could not receive any of them, no Channel 4/5 etc. Still, Saturday night on TV is not exactly a rewarding experience.

Judging by the sky this morning, which is almost completely clear of clouds, we could be in for another hot one, in which case I will probably give the pub a miss. Sweating out two or three pints of Guinness on a hot afternoon is not my idea of fun.

Monday 4th July, and a very happy birthday to my dear friend John, down there in Somerset.

Yesterday, weatherwise, was another real brahmer, hot, hot, hot, but we still managed to get to the pub, sit outside and enjoy a noisy drink. I hate to be deterred by something as normal as ‘weather’, although there have been days, thankfully few and far between, when I have had to abstain. Apart from the traffic noise – the pub sits at a crossroads, one of which is an A-road - the drink was most enjoyable.

Now, about my long-suffering problem with the Internet, to which I have already offered a temporary solution, the use of my Yahoo address instead of this one. Well, having asked my old pal Alan to see what his son has to say about it; he’s something of a whiz on all things web related; I had a sudden thought. ‘What if one of the addresses on my list is incorrect’, or, ‘what if one of them has me down as a spammer and has become less than enchanted with my blog’.

Anyway, my first thought after those two was to check my Safe Senders, Safe Recipients and Blocked Senders lists, which was when I had my ‘Eureka’ moment. I do hope what follows gives you all a chuckle, it certainly did me, after my red face cooled down. In amongst my Blocked list was my own address. Just how it got there I can’t be sure, but I suspect it has something to do with that MAILER DAEMON bunch.

I think, although I could be wrong, that after receiving such a message I decided I didn’t want them cluttering up my Inbox, and I labelled them as ‘spam’.

As I think I mentioned to some of my readers, I tested the system prior to this moment of glory, by forwarding to just two addresses and then only one, both of which came back via MD. Now, having removed my address from the Blocked list, I then sent a message to two people and, up until 05.30 this morning that message has not returned. Without actually forwarding another message to all in my list of Family and Friends, I won’t know for sure, but it seems a safe bet that I’m right. What’s that old saying, some thing about ‘hoist by his own petard? That’s me folks. My apologies for all the fuss.

Today we’ll be off to a place called The Bratch. Here we will find three locks, the gap between two of which is too short to moor a boat in, so we have to ensure nothing is coming down while we are going up, because it is impossible to pass in the middle. There’s no explanation in the Nicholson guide as to why they were built this way, suffice it to say that, other than the short pound I have just mentioned, the locks should be treated as normal. Well, that’s alright then. These three locks together, raise/lower the canal by 30 feet.

We are now on our eighth page so I think it’s time I posted.

Have a good week. I will test the efficacy of my cure to my email problems within the next few days and, assuming you all receive the next forwarded message, you may forget my Yahoo address.

Kind regards and best wishes to all.

Dave, Sheila and Rusty.