Buddy and I set off for
Stone at nine on Monday morning. We
wanted to call in at the boat yard there to get spare alternator belts and
other engine paraphernalia like filters and oil. I was hoping to see Martin on his fuel boat
when we got to Stone to get some supplies but it looked like he was away so I filled up with diesel and
bought a few bags of coal at the boatyard instead. Shame, as we always like to give our trade to
the fuel boats. As it was, they had run
out of the alternator belts and filters I needed and weren’t getting restocked
until later in the week.
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There’s always lots of
moored boats in Stone – the old Joules brewery is on the right where the
chimney sticks up
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There had been a working boat gathering at the weekend in Stone but it was so tricky getting past all the moored boats that I forgot to get any pictures.
As we left the last lock
in Stone we stopped to fill up with water.
Once we had gone down our seventh lock of the day I decided it was time
to stop for lunch out in the country. We
were lucky and had avoided rain even though there were black clouds rolling in every
half hour or so. But when I was mooring
up the wind sprang up and made it quite difficult to get the boat secure as one
end or the other kept blowing to the other side of the cut before I could get
it tied down.
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Moored for lunch near
Aston
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After lunch we went for a
walk as Buddy doesn’t get much exercise when we’re cruising – needless to say,
I get a lot as I have to operate each lock so I was feeling pretty shattered by
the time we got back from our walk. I blamed it on the strenuous weekend we had
had as we have got used to taking things easy recently.
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Whilst out we passed a
boat called Mallard and Buddy was fascinated by the toy mallard being towed
behind.
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After lunch I had planned
on getting to Great Haywood but after one more lock I decided to moor up for
the day at a place called Salt. We have
never stopped here before but it does have an unusual bridge.
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Our mooring at Salt for
the night
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Rather ornate bridge
behind our mooring
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Salt is a little village
about ½ mile away from the canal so I’ll probably pop down and have a look
before setting out on our journey again on Tuesday.
Buddy stayed on deck
whilst I was doing some odd jobs but he kept falling asleep whilst still
sitting upright.
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Buddy falling asleep sitting up
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I then heard him snoring
and saw his head was resting on the doorstep with his nose crumpling up
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Tired boy
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Later in the afternoon,
Martin came by on his fuel boat, I waved him down as I wanted to extend the
rear fenders to protect the bikes. He
had just what I needed but didn’t recognise me at first because he said, “Aaah,
Chalkhill Blue 2. I know a guy whose boat is called Chalkhill Blue”. He then realised who I was and we had a laugh
about it. It’s funny how boat names can
trigger memories but not always faces.
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