Where Are All the Boats?

Another late night last night!  These days if we are in bed by midnight it is an early one!  How things change ... back in Oz 10.30 pm would be a real late night!

As a result of the late night we did not get up early!  So off we went on today's journey I was surprised that there were no boats on the move.  We passed Westport Lake, not one boat there!


Deserted.

Onwards to the Harecastle tunnel.  There were no boats coming the other way so we were waved straight through!  As I have mentioned many times I really don't like the tunnels, especially this one as the door slams behind you and they turn on the very noisy extractor fans.....bang, pitch black noisy as all hell.  I just focus on the tiny spec of light at  the other  end of the tunnel getting bigger and bigger!

After the tunnel we turn on to the Macc canal.... ah that's better.

Sam likes the Macc!

Geoffrey quite likes it too ...

Now here is an unusual sight ... me operating the lock (yes, it was a stop lock!)

And Elaine in charge of the boat (yes, it was a stop lock !)

Very muddy towpath ...

Love this house, very private and secluded, still no sign of any boats on the move!

We passed NB Rock n Roll but there was no one on board  We passed George and Carol walking back along the towpath a bit further on, they said they were going to move from their present mooring.

Shortly after they moored behind us, so at least we spotted one boat moving today!

We had a towpath chat and they invited us around for evening drinks.

Elaine made a yummy fish pie for dinner whilst I sat down with a beer and watched England vs Wales.....say no more.

It's now 12.30am....we have just got back from George and Carol's boat....another late night, never mind, we had a good old chat and laugh, thanks guys.! 

Stop n Go

We left our mooring in Stone as planned yesterday morning, but as we left the first lock of the day we were met by thick ice!

As we had just blacked her bum I didn't want to charge through it and chip off the blacking, so we nicked Sir Thomas Brocklebank's private mooring for a while. (He is always moored on a public mooring in Stone anyway!).  We waited for a couple of hours and for another boat to go past and off we went.  As we were so far behind schedule we thought, "bugger it" and only moved through another lock and a few hundred yards and moored up for the night!  A big trip!

Ice about 1/2" thick

Another good reason to stay in Stone was that we could now join a big group from Aston Marina who were going down the 'spoons' for a curry night ... £5.75 for a curry including a pint of beer ... not bad!

Once again it was a really funny night.  Elaine was crying with laughter - they are a great group of people, and I am sure we will meet again on our travels.

Roly and Rob with their double beers !

Ray, Dot and Gordon

I must have been boring Ray at this point !

The whole gang !
From left to right - Barry, Carol, Diane, El, Elly, Sally, Bev, Roly, Rob, Myself, Ray, Dot and Gordon 

Elaine crying / laughing !

El and Elly - not believing what they are hearing down the other end of the table!
(Belgian Chocolate talk !!!)

      So to today (Friday) - there was no ice but plenty of rain !!! We hung around for a while and in the end decided to give it a go!  So it was away with the Arctic survival gear and on with the full wet weather gear!

We did a couple of locks - Elaine walked the dogs along the towpath to the Meaford lock, where there are towpath works, so it was the last chance for the dogs to do their do's for a while!  Elaine went to pop them back on the boat when it had come up into the lock - Sammy jumped on first - followed too quickly by Bombo who missed and went in the water - between the boat and the lock side ... with the propeller going pretty close by!!!!!  We yanked the poor frozen pup out of the water and quickly put him in the boat by the fire ! Poor boy.

So we carried on ... we were going to stop at Barlaston for the night, but by the time we got there the rain had stopped so we thought we would carry on to Stoke!

We had a really nice little cruise, we only spied one boat on the move - NB Uccello.  

Here we are on the Stoke flight - just to show it's not pretty villages!  There was so much rubbish around going through Stoke - such a shame.


Past the old bone and flint mill ...

Elaine having a chat with another boater who was out taking his dog for a walk.  He helped her with the last 2 locks, nice man.
 

I went into the Stoke top lock, which is a very deep bugger.  I waited and waited for something to happen.....

Eventually Elaine peered over the top and said that they had now fitted anti-vandal keys to the paddles ... they weren't there last May!  It took me a while to find it and I passed it up to Elaine, who was feeling nauseous peering over the edge!

We reversed into the service area at Etruria for a fill and dump ... and another chat with the nice boater man !

We ended today's journey moored up just past the Toby pub so what to do but to pop in for a pint and some grub - very nice it was too !

Elaine is having an early night as she didn't hit the sack till 2.30am this morning! (Mucking about on a teleseminar with American Herbalists she tells me !)

Hopefully no rain tomorrow!

Were Off!

Or we will be Thursday morning, but first last night ... I took the doggies for the usual midnight walk ... as soon as I got off the boat a chap came over and said "My big staffie has got off his lead and if he sees your two little dogs he will do them serious damage".  We did a quick U-Turn back to the boat, but he soon shouted over that he had caught the errant beast!

Back on board the boat it was shower time except the shower sump pump wasnt removing the water from the shower tray!  So, we remained dirty for the night!  This morning I removed the pump to check it out, basically it had some crud under one of the one way valves.

A quick clean up, reassemble and it was working again, good result.

As per the previous blog the stove glass arrived at the post office, so that is now fitted and the stove is now doing a sterling job .... the smoke has now turned to white!

Another strange thing that has happened is that our drinking water now smells and tasts like TCP ! I have put it down  to the fact that we recently bought a new water hose and have filled the tank twice with it ... I can't think of any other reason.  We did a google search on it and it seems that chlorine in the water can react with plastics, so hopefully it is that.  We have a charcoal filter, a jug filter and have even boiled the water but it still smells and tastes rotten.  We are emptying the tank as much as we can now and tomorrow we will refill it and run the water through the hose some more!

The rest of today was spent walking the dogs, shopping and refilling the boat with food and booze (and drinking water!).  We also went for our final drink at The Swan.

 

So that's it, tomorrow we commence our journey northward.

There is Smoke Coming out of the Chimney!

Nothing to do with the Pope ... it's much more important than that!  The new stove glass arrived at the Post Office this morning ... 

We have fire again...woohoo!

Post Restante works.

Stoned Again

Another very cold night last night, and another night with a bed full of furry creatures!

Up at first light this morning, 9.30am (Sun rises late up north tha knows) Heating on and a cuppa, no milk so I walked the dogs round to Aston Marina to get some, had a chat with Di, Andy and Jean whilst there.

As there was some ice on the canal we waited for a couple of boats to go past and break it, dont want to damage our new blacking do we? 

It was then a very short cruise up to Stone town centre, filling  with water before passing through the Star Lock.

Perfect mooring spot

We went for a walk to the Post Office to see if the fire glass had arrived yet....no was the answer, so we popped into Costas for a coffee.

We walked back to the boat via Stone chandlery to see if they had any stove glass...no again.

Back  to the good ship, I cleaned some water out of  the engine room whilst Elaine gave the interior of the boat a clean.

Another day done, Elaine is making some jewellery whilst I am doing bugger all....all good as usual!

PS. I got my first snotty comment yesterday.....not bad since we started blogging in March 2011, of course the big girl stayed anonymous. 

Blizzard Boating

As we were moored at Great Haywood on Sunday night we thought it would be rude not to pay a visit to what must be one of the dog friendliest pubs in the UK, The Clifford Arms. They also do pretty good food and as it was a very cold night we both went for a curry, I had the Thai red ring stinger and Elaine went for the veggie burn at both ends option ... they were both very good and lived up to all expectations.

As you would have read in yesterday's blog Elaine wrecked the multi fuel stove whilst recklessly hoovering - as a result it was going to be a cold night on the boat!  We usually keep the coal fire burning all night, with the animals all surrounding it keeping themselves warm.  So, what happened? We shared the bed with 3 cats and 2 dogs! They were not on top of the bed they were in it with us! Mind you, I did try to kill a few of them with the curry if you know what I mean......didn't work though!  It was a strange night!

So to today.  It was blowing a gale and snowing every now and again - the problem was that we wanted to get to Stone so that we could pick up the new glass for the fire.  We were chatting, deciding what to do when  - bang - a boat hit us and scraped all down the side!  This is the first time we have been hit since we have owned Caxton - what is worse is that she only just came off the slip after blacking yesterday!  I was out like a shot but the chap was super apologetic and blamed the wind - it was windy but we were on a dead straight!  Basically he wasn't compensating for the wind  plus it was a hire boat (Aqua) so maybe his first outing.  Never mind  - it just took a bit of paint off ... good job we put 4 coats on ... plus it gave me a good story to blog about!

So we decided to move and find a sheltered spot.

I put the full Arctic survival gear on.....it was 'kin freezing out there


We passed the tree that we reported to CART last time we passed here 11 days ago, as in it was about to fall on someone's boat and ruin their day!  Good to see they chopped it down!

Elaine walked the dog on the frozen tow path.  It was a good job it was frozen as this part would have been a quagmire!  

(It still was actually - just a bit of a frosty quagmire ... Elaine)

Did I mention it was the coldest day we have had in the UK! Sometimes it was a total blizzard.

Then the sun would come out and the doggies popped their heads out of the side hatch (with Elaine's help!) ...

Then it would snow again ... one chap inside a boat gave me a severe head shake; I'm not sure if he thought I was nuts or because I went past his boat at more than tick-over speed ... but to keep control in a strong wind you have to keep a bit of power on!  So, I will go with nuts!

This pic doesn't really show the snow, but trust me it was snowing hard and often sideways at that!

Snowing in the lock.

We ended up at Aston Lock so we popped round to the marina where the Monday arvo boaters tea was in full swing! We had a good old chat and catch up with Dot, Gordon, Toni, Ray, Banjo, Jim, Joan and Roly - we just missed seeing Elly!

Many thanks to Roly from the marina - he text-ed us this morning offering to pick us up in his van and go stove glass hunting.  Hopefully the new one will be waiting for us at Stone Post Office tomorrow as we had already ordered one online.

Cruising in the Snow

Elaine here ...

Last night I spent all night making up little 6" x 3" bundles of sticks and then fixing them to the bow and sides of the boat ... because there was talk of icebergs in the cut today and we had to protect our newly painted boat.

Then I was awoken from my busy dream by the dulcet tones of the screeching alarm clock!  Phew glad it was just a dream but what an exhausting night I had!

OK - so back to reality - today was the day for being relaunched into the water.  I must have had the weather on my mind while sleeping last night - and quite rightly too because it was indeed very cold and snowing !  I thought it was Spring?!

We piled out of bed and got the boat all ready to go ... while checking around the boat I noticed Paul's graffiti ...



Little NB Bramble was in front of us so she was first off the 'water shoot' ...

I wasn't sure how all this was going to work but it seems that there are two guys on a winch manually winding the boat towards the top of the slope while the other winch (from the winch room behind) holds on to it ... sorry if this isn't very technical !

They said it is very hard work winding the winch ... here are two of the volunteers hard at it...

They really are amazing guys, all these 'slipping guys' - they are all volunteers from the boat club - getting up on a Sunday morning in all weathers to do their bit for the club.  They are also very amusing with all their tales!

In went Bramble ...

Down the slope ...

One down, one to go, with the Lord and Master looking on !

Paul gave the Bramble guys a hand with their dog, Digger.  Such a lovely dog but a little bit bigger than our boys ... 

Off goes Bramble to the Great Heywood boat sales place ... up for sale !

Next up the mighty Caxton ...

and the snow starts in earnest !

Paul fretting about his (big) baby ...

See?!  Fretting or Freeezin?!

Like a roller coaster - down she goes ...

Not quite in the water yet ..

Slowly does it ...

 

What an angle ... wonder what the poor pussy cats were thinking at that moment !

... and then we were off - cruising as the snow fell - no icebergs though !  Paul was braving the elements outside, driving the boat - he put the stern cover over the back seating area and kept the back doors open so that he could feel a bit of heat coming through on his legs.  It was lovely and warm in the boat with the multi fuel burner doing its thing.

I only had one lock to do today so I thought I had better catch up with a bit of hoovering. The carpet in the boat was abominable, what with all the mud being dragged in, plus the cats being let loose on their kitty litter all day yesterday!

So, there was I merrily doing my bit - hoovering up and all around the fire when whammo the hoover tube slipped and slid against the fire glass - and this is the result ...

Yep - a girt big crack right across it !  So I shut it down and we are letting it burn itself out now so that we can get to replace it ... soon!  Bloody Bugger is all I can say!!

We went past another blogging boat 'Moore to Life' so I took a quick snap from the window!

We stopped at Great Heywood this arvo, so not too much cruising today as it is completely freezing cold and horrid outside!  Paul was frozen to bits when he came indoors.  It would be nice if we had a fire to keep us toasty but now we only have the remnants of a fire - the central heating will have to come on very soon !  (Then the cats will have to move position from the fire to the radiators!).  I am so glad we do have two forms of heating on the boat - you would be stuffed with only one at times like this!  We have decided to test out the Post Restante system and order a replacement glass on line, to be delivered to Stone Post Office ... where is a car when you need one?!