Journey halted – River Trent in flood

The dreaded email arrived yesterday morning which makes getting to Nottingham unlikely by the weekend.  So the plan for the day was to get to Shardlow and, river levels permitting, on to Sawley.

We moored up in the dark on Tuesday night and woke up to frost and a few snowflakes on Wednesday morning.  Once outside we realised it wasn’t a bad spot to moor considering we couldn’t see.

As with the last few days there was very little boat movement and we had the wide Trent & Mersey canal to ourselves.  This ornate iron railway bridge across the River Trent at Weston on Trent is still standing and used as a cycleway.

At Swarkestone we passed the entrance to the now derelict Derby canal.  The junction is used as a boat basin at present.

This chicken boat looked rather a good idea.

And, yet again, we saw swans sitting happily in a cabbage field.

The rather prettily named “Fine George’s Bridge” wasn’t living up to its name unfortunately.

After a few miles walking, Karen and Buddy came across the final milepost.

Because the flood gates are closed we have moored up in Shardlow to await a change in conditions.  This is a view entering Shardlow (with the wind getting up as can be seen from the water).

We needed some unset honey so went for a walk round Shardlow to find a shop.   The only shop didn't sell it but we met a lady who happened to be the landlady of the Malt Shovel and told us she sells local produce including honey.  On our walk round the village (which has six pubs!) we came across a terrace of cottages that still had boot scrapers built into their walls.

 We also found some ghost signs - this is from an old corn and cattle feed merchant.


We ended up in the Malt Shovel as we needed honey; unfortunatley they only had set honey so we had to have drinks to make up for it.

These are the four locks we went through today.