Macc had Adrian up in the night again (I didn’t hear what was going on, I was so tired from the disturbed night before). We managed to get our morning walk done in the dry, then as we had breakfast there was a heavy rain shower. I made a quick visit to Aldi to see if they’re restocked the wine we like; they hadn’t, but I found two more bottles lurking behind other things at the back of the shelf. We set off in clearing conditions at about 9.
There were still a few boats moored in Rugeley, but not as many as during the summer. Then we made the sharp turn onto the aqueduct over the River Trent.
The next mile post was another golden one. But to be honest I was more enamoured by the autumnal views.
Just long from here there’s a rather ordinary looking house, which has appeared a bit unloved recently. Now it has the steel frame of an extension going up, so it’ll be interesting to see what it looks like in the future. Taft Wharf used to do diesel from a boat. Then the boat was up on the land, and now all the bits of boat have been joined by bits of car.
The next mile post definitely wasn’t golden, it was just rusty coloured.
Just before Wolseley Bridge is where a boat was squashed by a falling tree a few months back. The bridge itself has roadworks going on, with a pipe across.
There’s nearly always a queue at Colwich Lock, but today we arrived on our own — except that there was a boat about to come down, and then another arrived above as well. As regular readers will know, this is a favourite lock of mine, and it was looking good now the sun had come out, in spite of the scaffolding tower at one end of the cottage.
The next mile post was yet another gold one! We won’t be passing any more, so I don’t know if that’s all of them. A boat was just about to leave Haywood Lock when we got there, then we could go in.
There was plenty of space to moor above the lock, but not right up by the junction. We moored in a decent spot but about 20 minutes later a boat ahead left so we got our act together and moved up. It’s got a straight edge, even the stern comes in, and it’s sunny.
We had lunch at the Canalside Cafe over at the farm shop. We were last here on my birthday at the end of March, so it seemed appropriate to go today, even if we were a day late for Adrian’s birthday. It always takes ages to queue to order, but we like the Staffordshire oat cakes. On the counter, they had both Halloween biscuits and mince pies!
When we got back to the boat, Macc didn’t really seem himself. (Squeamish readers may wish to skip past the next photo). He’s been having what Sue from Indigo Dream always referred to as the ‘dire rear’ since Sunday night, and this afternoon he was very sick. We decided to contact a local vet and after some pondering got an appointment. We were concerned he may have a blockage somewhere in his system, because in the field at Alrewas on Sunday morning he picked up and was running around with something green, which looked to me like a plastic bag — and these days when you try to get something off him, his reaction is to swallow it. Suddenly the green thing was gone, and I couldn’t see it anywhere. If he’d eaten it, that was bad news. Back to today, and Adrian booked an Uber from the Anglo Welsh yard to the vet. Even though it had been booked an hour in advance, in typical Uber style the details of the driver were never confirmed, and we concluded no-one was coming. A bus was due in the not too distant future so we thought we’d get that and just be slightly late for our appointment. We walked down to the bus stop, but on the way Macc squatted down and produced a big lump of green plastic plus about 8 inches of thin green plastic. Perhaps not surprisingly, he immediately seemed to have more of a spring in his step. Anyway, we’ve got him some plain boiled chicken and white rice to eat for a couple of days, and we’ll keep a close eye on him. Meanwhile, here is the little tinker earlier today on the Junction Bridge.
It’s always interesting being moored near a junction. Earlier on there was a lot of hooting going on which turned out to be from a boat coming straight across the junction, who’d spotted a boat coming out from under the bridge without sounding a horn or having a look out. The two boats only just avoided a collision, and there was quite a shouting match. It’s also been pretty breezy, which hasn’t helped with some of the manoeuvres here.
5 miles, 2 locks. (277 miles, 180 locks)