to Norbury Jn - to Brewood - plus a Chance meeting !!

Elaine here ...

We've had a bit of trouble with internet connections over the past few days, so havn't been able to blog !  It's not that great at the time of writing (Sunday night), but I will see how I go !

On Thursday morning we set off from Market Drayton to our next destination - Norbury Junction.

We had 5 Tyrley Locks to do that day ...


We thought they should get the prize for the most picturesque locks encountered thus far !

Liam and I doing our stuff ...

This is a pic Paul took - practicing his arty 'Barry' (NB Northern Pride) shots through the locks - or is it just 'cos he saw a 'P' for Paul there ...

 

Between the locks

At the top lock we encountered these people who were looking totally confused - it turned out to be their first lock ever - to add to their confusion the top lock was filling itself up without them having opened any paddles ! Liam and I gave them a quick lock lesson, for which they were very grateful!

Really pretty tall bridges along the way ...

Some stretches of the canal were quite narrow - here we are gettin' cosy with
NB Venus !

Pretty narrow - and a very muddy towpath - which had mudslides along it - so I wasn't about to walk along it!!

We had to take a pic of this hire boat in front of us - they were all over the place in front of us for ages and then got stuck! There was much ado and shouting and waving of arms 'til they got it going again ... then luckily one of the crew members couldn't get back on the boat, so they had to try to pull into the side just past the bridge hole to get him on again - at which point we slid past them !

This is a pic everyone takes of the High Bridge on the Grub Street Cutting, with a telegraph pole in the middle of it !

Liam had to be awoken from his sun-bathing to check it out !

We arrived at Norbury Junction, found a nice mooring and went for a little walk to check out the area! Paul and Liam went off for a little walk with the dogs ... I wasn't in the mood for one of Paul's field expeditions, so I went back to the boat and left them to it !

Paul was very taken with this field / crop !

and the mega house at the end of it !

That night we had dinner in the Junction Inn at Norbury Junction - no pic though, so will just link it here ! 

On Friday morning, we set off for our next destination - Brewood ("Brood").  We hadn't been able to get an internet signal, so didn't know what was going on in blogging world until a little way along - when we noticed that we should pass NB Chance - if they had not passed us already ! So - we kept a look out for them !

Along the way, we saw this boat - must be my family's  'other' boat !

The dogs were especially exhausted - Bombo couldn't even hold himself up in the life ring !

It's a dog's life !

Sammy - sunbathing !

Views along the way ...
  

 

Some nice ...

Some not so nice .... 

What the ???  No wonder I have nightmares !

Onward we went - we knew we were running out of time to see NB Chance, so we positioned Liam on the roof with the binoculars - and we found them !

Here is a pic of them taking a pic of us !

 

Getting closer .... we stopped mid-stream for a little chat !  We had been wanting to meet up for ages - so it was lovely to meet Doug and James at last !  We met them at Wheaton Aston, which was pretty busy and most of the moorings were taken, so we didn't hold our breathe about getting a spot, but we said if we did we would come back for a cuppa !

We carried on and filled up with Diesel ... 

Then moved along to the water point - and who should come along but Doug and James (from NB Chance) - so we had another long, lovely chat - lucky there were 3 water points available - but no-one else came along !  We introduced them to Bombo, Sam and Geoffrey too !  (Sorry I didn't offer you a drink guys - I didn't know we were gonna stand there for so long ... next time !!)

We said our goodbyes and got on our way - through our one lock of the day !  Up at the lock we encountered a boat who was 'kind of' waiting to come down into the lock, but who decided to tie up a bit of a distance from the lock and to walk down and look at the workings of it ... poor guy, said he was really worried about getting the boat in the lock - as this was their first !  Paul gave him some hints and we encouraged them to come on in the lock as they 'had the water' after us !  We passed them by and wished them well (there was another boater at the lock to help them down, so we knew they would be OK!)

We continued on (there were no moorings left at Wheaton Aston anyway!) ...  

Over the aqueduct at Stretton ... 

and on into Brewood (pronounced Brood - don't know why !)

It was such a pretty village we decided to stay for the weekend - here are some pics of the village ... 

 

Speedwell Castle !

 

 

Prettiest little alleyway I've ever seen !

  

 

Reminded Paul of the 'old days' !

 On Saturday afternoon, Paul and Liam got the bikes out (at last !) and took them for a ride around the place - they came back very muddy !

 

On Saturday night, we went out for a lovely Indian meal at 'The Curry Inn' and then back to our current local 'The Bridge Inn' - where doggies are very welcome - so we went and got them from the boat, so they could watch the Olympics with us !  (For some reason we havn't taken pics of our pubs in the past couple of days - how slack of us !)

Sadly, Lynne and Mick (Liam's Mum and Dad) came and took him home today - but not after taking us for a lovely lunch!  We had a little dog walk with them after we got back to the boat, then a quick cuppa and they headed back to Milton Keynes.  Poor Sammy - he misses his new buddy - he will have to put up with us again now !

Tomorrow we will get going again - still not exactly sure where we are going - but it looks a lot like we are heading for Stratford on Avon - we just have to work out a good route - so far it looks like a bloody lot of locks .... LIAM COME BACK !!!!