Travelled down to Great Haywood on Friday evening for a weekend on the boat. The roads seemed quiet for a Friday night in the holiday period - we soon realised why! Everyone was on the canals. The Trent and Mersey was extra busy as a result of the breach on the Shroppie which has temporarily closed the canal forcing everyone to use the T & M.
We opted to stay in the Marina on Friday night and I used the time to fit the runners to the under dinette freezer that I had fabricated in my garage the previous week. The easier access to the freezer is a huge improvement (according to the galley girl - Elaine).
Freezer runners now installed!
Saturday morning was an early departure from the marina and we opted to keep off the "four counties ring" and travelled South from Great Haywood towards Rugeley. Although we had initially intended travelling a little further we actually chose to moor before the winding hole north of Rugeley, almost as an 'emergency-stop' manoeuvre, as we passed narrowboat Tramper. Tramper was the next boat to be fitted out by Anthony M after ours and we were keen to meet John and Moira and see how they were enjoying the boat. It was great to chat with John and generally 'chew the fat' on the towpath comparing boating bits and sharing experiences. Naturally, It wasn't long, walking up and down the same length of towpath, before we realised I had stood in dog s***! This was shortly followed by John discovering he had stood in it as well. Despite thorough searching of the grass I still couldn't identify where the offending parcel lay! Later (to Elaine's joy), I discovered (by sense of smell) that I had transferred it to most of the boat's accessible areas; gunwales, fore deck, aft deck, bow, saloon, galley, etc, etc. This resulted in almost a full internal and external valet - how popular I was!!!
Narrowboat Tramper
Sunday morning started with a beautiful sunrise and almost still condititions. We took off early, winded north of Rugeley, by the time we returned to Great Haywood in true 'Sods Law' fashion the wind had picked up making for a more interesting arrival at the Marina. Thankfully our berthing was made easy by the fact that our neighbouring narrowboat Kaspra was still out cruising resulting in a full 15ft gap to hit with a 6ft10inch boat - even I could do that in the wind. We watched the Grand Prix and had lunch before heading home for the week.
Early Morning - North of Rugeley
Looking forward to the bank holiday weekend.
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