Shiralee Cruise 2011 #30

Wednesday 28th September.

Yesterday morning we moved on from the bottom of lock 9 to Polesworth, where, after a quick cuppa, we set of for the local health centre, only to discover that it is closed on Tuesday mornings. So, since we needed a prescription each, we did a bit of shopping, walked back to the boat and had a spot of lunch.

About 2 pm we again made our way to the health centre, by which time my legs, from my knees to the bottoms of my feet, were really giving me gyp. The knees still tend to ache on most walks, as do my calf muscles. My feet don’t just ache, they are a constant source of discomfort, even in bed. By the time we arrived at the centre in this belated summer heat-wave, I was really pooped and not in the brightest of moods.

To be told by the receptionist that, ‘because you are temporary patients, you will have to book an appointment for tomorrow’, came as something of a blow, not to mention a bloody insult. Are our needs of less importance than those of the patients on their list? It’s not as if they were busy, with only a handful of patients waiting there.

Anyway, at this explanation for having to wait for the morrow, just to spend five minutes waiting for a doctor to write up a prescription, I blew up, raised my hands in the air and stormed off in high dudgeon. Wifey was not best pleased at my behaviour, but I was even less pleased at the mere idea that I should have to walk into that village for a third time.

This morning we girded our loins and headed for Hopwas, a distance of eight miles, with two locks along the way. With the amount of boats moored up over such a distance, our progress was rather slow, with the whole trip taking almost four hours.

Fortunately, although it is very warm outside, there is a cool breeze blowing through the boat, so I am able to sit here and bring this blog up to date. Goodness knows what temperatures you are enduring down south!

Tomorrow we will head for Whittington, just three miles away, where we will enjoy a pub lunch. I’m quite looking forward to sitting under a parasol and enjoying a drink of Stella and a light lunch. Yes, Stella, Guinness is a wee bit heavy in this weather.

Saturday 1st October.

Sad to say the pub lunch at Whittington did not materialise, mainly because The Swan had been closed down. This is not the first time we have seen the demise of a local. The Swan though, with its huge catchments area, came as a bit of a surprise. Actually, we took a walk into Whittington and found another pub, but it didn’t do food, so we didn’t bother.

Now, just before setting off from Whittington yesterday morning, along came a boat with another in tow. Since they were crawling along at tick-over speed this did not bode well for our trip to Fradley. So, while we were giving them time to get a couple of miles ahead of us, Wifey popped into the village for milk, bread and a paper.

Not wishing to catch up to the crawlers in front we took our time heading for the junction. We needn’t have worried though because said crawlers had pulled in about a mile ahead. But, having sauntered along for the first mile, we sauntered along for the other four, completing the trip in two hours. And very pleasant it was too. Of course this Indian summer can’t last for much longer, but it is at least saving on coal.

Incidentally, I told you in the last blog, that we would be heading up the Birmingham and Fazely Canal, which would have meant turning left at Fazely Junction and spending a couple of days at the water park. However, in view of our shortage of medication we decided against this and continued along the Coventry Canal instead.

So, having digressed somewhat, back to Fradley Junction where we enjoyed a pub lunch at The Swan. They do a rather good Hot Pork Baguette and, much to my surprise, having forgotten our last visit, they also have Murphy’s Stout on tap. (There are times when a poor memory is not an altogether bad thing!)

Today, after disposing of rubbish and topping up with water, we will be heading for Handsacre, where we will stay for the weekend. Here we have The Crown, which is beside the canal, and The Old Peculiar, which is a short walk into the village.

This fine weather is still holding up and looks set to stay until Monday or Tuesday of next week. We have heard that snow will soon be on its way. Hmmm! Can’t say I like that idea much.

Sunday 2nd October.
Now, after five years on the cut and having already visited the majority of places mentioned in this year’s blogs, I still have problems remembering what they look like before we arrive. Wifey tries her best to explain the appearance of these places, even to the extent of showing me in one of the guide books, but she’s not always successful. I suppose I must blame this on my old memory, but it really is a darn nuisance.

Anyway, having arrived at Handsacre I immediately recognised the moorings, but until we walked to the local shops their location and that of the pubs was lost to me. No matter, I now know which pub of the two we used on our last visit, The Old Peculiar.

The reason for this preference is that we don’t like Sky TV in pubs and The Crown has just that. In order to attract the paying public some establishments seem to think all punters love football. Neither of us can stand the wretched game much less have it shoved down our throats when we’re trying to enjoy a quiet drink. Yesterday the Crown was showing the local derby of Everton and Liverpool at lunchtime and followed that in the evening with another match. Too much!

The pub we normally use in Findern, just up the road from Mercia Marina, also has Sky, but the sound is turned off on Sunday lunchtime, so that’s alright then.

Sunday lunch for us was, until we took to the water, a simple matter of a couple of drinks in the local followed by a late roast at about six p.m. Over the years since buying the boat we have found our appetites diminishing somewhat, to the extent that we very rarely bother with a full roast dinner. And this doesn’t only apply to Sundays, we now prefer much smaller meals and tend to shun red meat for the rest of the time too. We are quite likely to snack these days on meals such as baked potato or pasta as anything else, besides which where most people consider midday or 1 pm to be the right time for a main meal on Sunday, we have always kept to the same time as mid-week, about 6 p.m.

However, since we’ll be heading back this way once we have met up with Alan and Chris, we have vowed to stop at Handsacre again to sample an evening meal at The Old Peculiar. The prices look good at about £5.95 and the place is very comfortable and clean.

Whilst sitting there this afternoon I spotted some framed cartoons on the wall opposite and went to investigate. They turned out to be all about motor bikes and were drawn by a chap called P. Wilford. Having enquired at the bar about this person, I was told by a customer that the man responsible for putting them there was the manager and that he was sitting outside in the garden. So, leaving Wifey to fend for herself I popped out to have a chat.

Being a biker himself and deciding several years before to remove the pool table and turn the area into seating, he looked around on eBay for something suitable for adorning the walls and found these cartoons. The pictures were drawn in the late ‘80s and early ’90s and, from what the manager told me, Mr. Wilford also drew cartoons of other subjects. I must investigate further.

Monday 3rd October.

Aha, the weather has changed already, well, it has up here. Last night we saw the first drop of rain for quite a while but, when June phoned to be reminded of our blog address – her computer has crashed – she asked if we could send the rain down to Harlow. She doesn’t like the stifling heat any more than I do. Wifey seems impervious to any kind of weather and could probably live in an igloo or mud hut in the desert with no detrimental effect.

Today we have set our sights on Rugeley where there is a Morrisson’s store and a Wilkinson’s. Not that we need much by way of shopping will only be stopping for bread and the paper, and dispose of some of our books to a charity shop. After that we’ll be off to moorings out in the boondocks for the rest of the day and night.

Right now would be a good time to advise you all of our planned route for 2012, which will take in a lot of new territory and cover many more miles than this year has. Indeed, it will be more like our first year out at about 750 miles.

Just briefly so as not to bore you too much, we’ll be heading south to Oxford where we’ll take the River Thames to Reading and the top of the Kennett and Avon canal and on down to Bristol.

From Bristol we intend taking the Bristol Channel up to the Gloucester and Sharpness canal which, in turn will take us on to the River Severn and Stourport where we’ll join the Staffs and Worcester canal and head north.

Following the Staffs and Worcester, the Shroppie, the Bridgewater and the Leeds and Liverpool canals, we’ll arrive in the big city of Liverpool. After a few days seeing the sights of this City of Culture, we’ll head on up to the River Ribble and cross the Ribble Link to the Lancaster canal and on to its furthest reach, when we’ll make our way back to the Trent and Mersey and back to Mercia for the winter.

We reckon we will have to cruise an average of 3 or 4 miles per day in order to eke the trip out for seven months, which will give us plenty of time for two day stopovers wherever we like. So, lots of new experiences, especially along the Kennett and Avon where the moorings are in short supply and where we will have to pass through 29 locks at Devizes, all at one go. That’ll be fun! We have lots of planning to do this winter.

Tuesday 4th October.

The weather has finally changed for the worse, lots of high wind and heavy cloud yesterday afternoon and evening, although the wind has died down this morning. Hopefully it won’t be too fierce on our three mile trip to Great Haywood where, after phoning the surgery yesterday, we will have to book ourselves in and arrange for prescriptions. I was told that Sheila will be able to return in the afternoon to collect them, but I have my doubts.

This morning, despite our panel showing 12.1 volts, the pesky heater refused to start up and with the drop in temperature overnight it was a wee bit chilly in here. Still, boiling the kettle and turning the oven on for a short spell solved the problem. It looks like we’ll have to get the fire started again. Goodness knows what the voltage is at this minute, I daren’t look, but our lights are getting dimmer by the minute. There are times when this 8 am restriction to running of engines can be a darn nuisance.

Actually, I sat and worked out what the problem is with the voltage drop. Our original batteries, of which we had six domestic, were 135 Ampere Hour, giving a total of 810 when fully charged. When we asked Linden to replace them with four new ones he installed the 115 A/H rated ones, thus reducing the available storage to just 460 A/Hours. No wonder we’re having problems. Indeed, we currently have just over half the power available to what we had after adding two more batteries on our first trip out way back in 2007. When we add two more later this year we’ll still only have 80% of the previous available power. My fault entirely of course, I should have insisted on like for like.

15.30 same day.

We left our moorings at bridge 69 at 09.00 and managed the three miles and one lock to Great Haywood in about 1½ hours. Our only reason for stopping here is to pay a visit to the local surgery, and what a difference that was compared to Polesworth. I gave them a call as soon as we arrived and explained our situation and was assured that all we had to do was pop into the surgery, fill in the usual forms and all would be taken care of. The prescriptions would be made up for the next morning and the medication prepared at their own dispensary. All we need to do is walk into the village in the morning and we’ll be on our way before lunchtime.

Now, as we seem to be experiencing problems with batteries, I also phoned the nearest marina and asked about mooring up there for a couple of nights. The very pleasant lady I spoke to assured me that somebody would return my call asap. They didn’t, so I called again about an hour later. The same lady referred back to the other person and again said they would call me back. They still haven’t done so. I can’t imagine their business is doing too well if this is how they treat enquirers about one of their services.

I had hoped to post this blog today but unfortunately the signal is very poor here. This is because we are below the lock, whereas the last time we moored here we were above it. However, since keeping records of signal strength on this trip, I do know that the signal is OK at Weston, but I will have to tie my dongle to a stick and erect it on the roof. Hmmm! I’m not sure I like the sound of that. Could be painful.

Wednesday 5th October.

Occasionally, when we’ve had poor Internet signal late in the day, I find it can pick up enough the following morning to access the WWW. Sadly, at 5.20 this morning this is not the case, so I won’t be posting this just yet.

5.30 pm the same day.

Well, we’re still here at Great Haywood and won’t be moving on until tomorrow, and that assumes the weather is kind to us. We had hoped to be in Weston by now, but we don’t cruise in high winds, and that’s what we’ve had all day today.

This morning at about 11 o/clock we walked in to the surgery, our prescriptions were already made up and ready at the dispensary. It seems that if a rural practice has patients living three miles or more away they are entitled to have their own dispensary, even if there is a local pharmacy that dispenses prescriptions. Not a lot of people know that!

The trouble with Great Haywood, as we discovered earlier in the year, is that it’s virtually impossible to pick up TV or Internet, especially below the lock, which is where we are at present. Still, no matter, there’s not much worth watching on TV and I have nothing important to carry out on line, except to post this blog which is already 10 pages long. Hopefully we’ll make it to Weston tomorrow morning.

Thursday 6th October.

It’s Valerie’s 65th birthday today, hope you had a good one. I say ‘had’, because I have no idea when I’ll be able to post this blog. I’ve already cut out much of the rubbish but it’s still going to be over 10 pages long.
Planning is one thing, doing is quite another. Yesterday was a really godawful day in terms of weather, nothing but high winds and, later in the afternoon, plenty of rain and it continued throughout the night. Being moored under an oak tree does make life interesting, with acorns and small branches falling onto the boat, not to mention the bird pooh, which I’m very wary of treading in first thing in the morning. They are not small birds either, probably the size of vultures judging by the lumps.

Thankfully the high winds have now dropped and so has the rain, so we should be able to make our way to Weston. With all the holiday traffic still making its way up and down this canal, I’m looking for an early start this morning. There’s not a lot of space at the junction, which is where we really need to stop and dispose of rubbish and top up with water. We won’t get another chance until we get to Stone, and we will have to wait until Monday morning, when we’ll turn the boat around and head back to Mercia.

Hallelujah brother, we’re at Weston now and I can get trhee bars up on the dongle. So, here goes nothing, let’s post this humongous blog!! Yeah!!

All abreast from Dave, Sheila and Rusty, our long suffering pooch, bless her cotton socks