Shiralee Cruise 2012 # 28

Overwater to Bridge 7/8 Shroppie


Thursday 27th September

Well now, with only about 16 days to go before we’re back at our winter moorings, this will probably be the penultimate blog for 2012. Despite the poor summer this year, we have enjoyed our travels over the past six months and we hope you have enjoyed reading the blogs.

Next year our aim is to visit Liverpool and cross the Ribble Link to the Lancaster Canal and take a look at how Lancastrians live. We had hoped to make those two trips this year but, with some kind of festival taking place on the Lancaster and with bookings for the Ribble Link already oversubscribed, this was not possible. So, we will plan those trips during our winter break and book them up prior to setting out, probably at the end of March.

Friday 28th September

I have discovered that, when it comes to painting with pastels, cleanliness is next to godliness – but, hey, who wants to be an angel? Anyway, unlike other budding artists, I can’t keep my efforts standing on an easel waiting for any additions I will make later. Nope, I have to remove my painting from the board it rests on, slide it carefully into a plastic sleeve and put that in a folder. With the best will in the world therefore, the darn thing is bound to get smudged, which is what is happening with my ‘Caravan’ project.

I’m beginning to think I should have gone back to watercolour but, having agreed to be Emma’s guinea pig for this series of paintings with pastels, I can’t really let her down. So, later today, after we reach the bottom of the next set of locks – and we have 11 of these Audlem locks still left to do today – I’m going have a look around for any books I may still have on the subject and, with my trusty laptop, search out some info on watercolour pencils; of which I have a whole bunch; and then find a subject to paint.

Meanwhile, should the weather be clement, we’ll be off through the rest of the aforementioned locks. Amen to that. The weather at present is far from clement in fact it’s drizzling with rain and rather windy.

Here’s a question for experts on Internet Explorer:

All of a sudden and out of the blue, without me making any adjustments to IE settings, every time I click on a link in IE all I get is a tiny screen at the top left hand side of my screen, which I then have to enlarge. I have no idea why this is happening, nor do I know how to fix it. Heeeeeelllpppp!!!! It’s driving me nuts!

Incidentally, when I open IE for the first time, it comes up as normal size.

Saturday 29th September

I have been sitting here at my laptop since 5.15 this morning and, after several attempts at getting online, without success, I took the dongle and propped it up on the roof. Even then I could only get a poor signal. Still, I did manage to download my emails but, when it came to sending, no chance. ‘Here we go again’, I thought.

Once again we were really lucky with the weather yesterday. Sheila walked into Audlem for the paper but, when she returned it was still raining. So, we hung around for a while and, as it seemed to be easing off by about 8.15, we set off to start the other 11 locks of the Audlem flight and the 2½ miles to the bottom of Adderley locks. By mid afternoon, down came the rain again and continued well into the evening. In fact, it stopped when I took rusty out, started again when we got back, then stopped when Sheila took her out and re-started as she got back. I think we lead a charmed life where the weather is concerned.

Sunday 30th September

Well, that’s another month out of the way and autumn to look forward to. Already we can see some of the trees changing colour and dropping their leaves. Still, in another couple of weeks we’ll be safe and secure at our winter moorings.

Yesterday turned out fine, with not a drop of rain, so we headed off for Market Drayton at about 8.15 and arrived at 10.15 and topped up with water.

When we came through here in April, or thereabouts, we took a walk through town to Morrison’s. Now that is quite walk or, as some would say, a good stretch of the legs. On that occasion, even though my legs ached, as they always do on such walks, I don’t remember the walk as being particularly uncomfortable. This time however, I can safely say, I really suffered and had to sit down as often as I could on the way back. I’m still feeling the effects of that walk this morning. Still, the nearest pub is just across the nearby bridge, so that won’t be a problem.

Listed below are our planned stops from now until Mercia:-

Goldstone Wharf, Gnosall, Wheaton Aston, Brewood, Penkridge, Great Haywood, Rugeley, Handsacre, Fradley Junction, Alrewas, Branston (where we plan on a pub lunch, proper) and finally Mercia, on or about the 16th.

Monday 1st October

Sunday lunch time was spent at The Talbot pub, which is just a short walk across the nearest bridge. Market Drayton has a huge selection of pubs, but most of them are within the town itself and The Talbot is the only one close to the canal. Having walked into town yesterday, with the resultant aching legs, another such walk did not seem too attractive.

In fact, the last time we passed through here we did walk into town, but only to the nearest pub. Sadly the pub we chose was all spit and sawdust and not really to our liking. Had it been placed in the Wild West I have no doubt it would have had bat-wing doors and spittoons by every table. I can even conjure up a honky-tonk piano to go with them, not to mention a few floozies sitting on cowboy’s knees. Ah well, that’s my imagination for you.

Today, as you can see above, we are heading for Goldstone Wharf, which also boasts a really good pub. However, weather permitting, we may push on a bit further so that we can run the engine for as long as we like, assuming nobody else chooses to moor up with us. I also need to take our back box off and repair the lid. For some reason that I am unable to fathom, I forgot to screw the blocks holding the hinges and, instead, left the wood glue to take the strain. Consequently one of the blocks has come unstuck and needs to be secured with screws.

Tuesday 2nd October

Yesterday morning, after Wifey had walked into town for a few bits and pieces, we set off for Goldstone Wharf, on a bright and mild morning. We had about 3 miles to go and five locks at Tyrely, plus a narrow cut of about two miles – maybe a bit less.

We had been moored close to a pine tree for these two days, so you can imaging the mess on our roof by the time we left. I managed to brush most of the pine needles off from one side whilst going through Tyrley Locks and, after our cup of coffee, removed the other lot whilst Wifey took Rusty out.

When we came through this cut earlier in the year, as you may recall, we were heading in the opposite direction and came face to face with a fallen tree and, since we couldn’t go forward, I had to reverse almost a mile, turn around and head back to Gnosall while a BW crew removed the blockage. You could say that this tree is the reason for the 2 mph speed limit along this stretch, because the banks that rise above the canal are pretty unstable, especially during periods of heavy rain, which is something we also ran into yesterday.

Two miles per hour may seem slow but, anything above this causes a bow wave and wash that can easily erode the canal bank and cause a land slip, so it’s best to keep to a very slow speed. The floating barrier still surround that fall, so I guess somebody will be along during winter stoppages to clear the rest of the debris.

At Goldstone Wharf is a very pleasant pub that sits beside the canal and a bridge. Unfortunately, the road passing the pub is currently closed for repairs, so the owner must be losing some trade here. He does have a couple of fields open for caravans and campers but, with the road closed and the season coming to an end, he’s not getting much custom their either.

The other problem with this mooring is no Internet access and no mobile phone either. So, despite seven pages of this blog, I won’t be posting from here. I’m not too sure about Shebdon Wharf, which is where we’ll be heading for today but, if possible I’ll try to post from there.

Wednesday 3rd October.

It is just after 7.05 am and I have just committed the most stupid mistake since I started this blog. I must have added a couple of pages to it this morning but, when I came to the end and closed my Word document down, instead of clicking on ‘yes’ when asked if I wanted to save the changes, I clicked on ‘no’. I sometimes wonder if I’m quite the man for the job and I’m damned if I can remember what I wrote.

Having wasted all that time and with Wifey about to surface, I will just say that, having spent 2½ hours travelling here yesterday, partly in pouring rain, yet again, we are now at Norbury Junction where, as with our last visit, I am unable to get online and post this blog.

And that’s that for this entry.

Thursday 4th October

We arrived at Wheaton Aston yesterday at about 10.45. I had thought we might catch the bus to Stafford, but with Wifey being poorly, we decided against it. Instead we walked to the local Spar shop, just for the paper and a bottle of milk.

We have probably travelled some 10 miles without Internet access and, when I finally connected this morning, there were 76 emails, many of them really comical ones from Sandra. Keep ‘em coming Sandra, I’ve got a folder full of your jokes and pictures, which I go back over when I’m in need of a chuckle.

My caravan painting is coming along, although it does look rather grubby. However, Emma assures me that it will all work out in the end.

The local garage her at Wheaton Aston, has a Red Diesel pipe running down to the canal and it must be the cheapest on the cut at just £0.76.9p/litre. When you consider that most other outlets are in the 90p + bracket, you can understand why this bloke is so popular. Needless to say, we’ll be topping up before we leave this morning.

Friday 5th October

There’s not much to be said for yesterday, except that, after stopping off at Brewood for a spot of shopping, we continued on to one of our favourite spots on the Shroppie, between bridges 7 and 8. But, with Sheila still suffering with her cold; which has pretty much cleared up this morning; and me developing a serious trapped wind problem later in the day, we were looking a sorry pair.

So, having ended on a less than cheerful note and with a good signal, it’s about time this blog was posted.

All the best to one and all. Enjoy the coming weekend.

Dave, Sheila and Rusty.