We So Should Have Stayed Bored! 12th March

Market Drayton to Tyrley Top Lock

What a wet morning! Not downpour wet, but totally soggyfying wetness that sneaks up on you. So we decided to sit and wait for it to stop and let Tilly out instead. Our schedule slipping, but then at 1 hour 18 minutes a day  it shouldn’t be too hard to catch up on ourselves.

The morning got pottered away, but all three of us were getting bored and wanted to be on the move again. After lunch we decided to don the waterproofs and push off, if all we did was get to the top of Tyrley that at least would be progress.

Approaching the bottom of the locks we entered our first cutting. Not that impressive at first, but soon the tree canopy covers the whole cutting and you are cocooned below, damp and surrounded by red and green stone. We wondered why the locks had been cut here instead of building them closer to Market Drayton, maybe the geology here was more suitable than further on.

The last few days we’ve noticed quite a flow on the canal, it’s been similar to that on the Llangollen. Below the locks it looked like we could go white water rafting! A new piece of armco has been added to the old to try to force the bywash to flow down stream instead of across. The force of the water is so great that watching from above I wondered how long the new metalwork would last.

The bottom two locks were empty, I opened up for Mick to charge Oleanna through the rapids and into the lower chamber. With the lock filling I walked up to the second lock to open the gates. I could see that the next lock was full and there was almost certainly another boat coming down the flight by the amount of water pouring over the lock gates. I turned to try to signal to Mick to leave the gate open for them, but he’d already closed it and was stepping back on board in the mouth of the lock.

The bottom lock has new gates and no mention that the following pound should not be moored in, the next lock up has signs on the bottom gates warning you to set the next lock before exiting. We knew this, hence me having gone to open the gates, but others coming up hill wouldn’t!

Our mistake here had been for Mick to close the gate. Despite having stopped close in the entrance to the lock, the amount of water coming down and heading to the bywash weir had pushed Oleannas bow across towards the towpath. Mick stepped on board and tried to straighten her up to bring her through the next lot of rapids. Without a working bow thruster this meant moving the stern across to pivot the boat away from the weir. However the force of water coming down and the stone shelf under the water meant that the stern of Oleanna was pushed onto the stone and stuck there!

I could see that he needed assistance so walked back, the boat coming down the flight loitered in their lock waiting to see what would happen. Mick was pushing with the boat hook trying to get the stern off to no avail. The bow was still free, but that wasn’t helping. I walked up to explain what was happening to the next boat (The Lollipop Boat), he came and tried pushing whilst Oleanna fought to get off the rock. We both stood on the off side to add weight to that side, engine, push, still no movement.

The Lollipop chap suggested that we should refill the lock above bring their boat in and then try flushing the pound with the water from the lock, which hopefully would lift Oleanna enough and with some oomph from the engine get her free. So this is what we did, all that happened was another couple of inches that normally sits below the water line appeared above. Oleanna was even more aground.

The Lollipop boat was moved down into the next lock out of the way. Towing Oleanna wasn’t going to be an option as we didn’t want them to get stuck as well. Boat poles came out, with two of us pushing the bow and Oleanna in gear, still no movement, her bow was now aground too. Mick wanted less water in the pound, Lollipop man suggested more, it felt like he’d been here helping or in a similar situation before. So I headed up to the lock above and opened up the gate paddle hoping to raise the water level enough to refloat Oleanna. From above I could see the two of them pushing and pushing, Oleanna doing her best to fight free, plumes of water going over the towpath, still I let water down.

A dog walker joined in, he was passed our boat pole. With the two of them at the bow I could see Oleanna starting to swing round, but was the stern free? The chaps moved along towards the stern pushing and using the poles as levers, ‘Give me a lever and a fulcrum and I’ll move the world’ as Frank Matthews used to say (he most probably still does!). Then I could make out that the water at the stern wasn’t washing over the towpath and Oleanna was moving towards me and the lock above. No time to stop and say big Thank Yous as she would have just gone aground again.

Once the next lock was filling with Oleanna safe inside I walked back down to retrieve our pole and shout a big Thank you to the Lollipop boat just as they were exiting the bottom lock. Everyone had remained calm throughout and that bit of local knowledge had helped get Oleanna free. If there hadn’t been so much water coming down the flight it most probably wouldn’t have happened. If I’d been allowed to help it would have been sorted a lot quicker. Tom didn’t seem to want my tuppennys worth though!

We worked our way up to the top with ease. Stopped to fill with water at the slow tap. By now the light was starting to fade so we pulled up onto the end of the visitors moorings stoked the fire and dried off. Maybe we’d have been better off spending the day being bored!

5 locks, 1.39 miles, 1 major sticking, 2 inches, 4 inches out of the water, 1 sign, 2 poles, 1 hook, 75438gallons of water later, 1 hour stuck, 1 floating boat, 2 big Thank yous to the chaps, 1 full water tank, 2 showers, 2 drying coats, 1 cat who knew what to do all along, but nobody was listening!

Three Boxes And Three Supermarkets. 11th March

Market Drayton

Yesterday evening the boat moored in front of us kept it’s generator running well after the 8pm turn off time. When eventually it stopped (suspect it had run out of petrol) the engine was turned on for another half hour. There can be reasons for running your engine out of hours, we have been known when returning late after a day away to run over by half an hour to help the batteries top up to last out the evening. So this morning when I saw him walk past us with a jerry can and then start up his genie again I thought we’d be in for a noisy day. We decided to let Tilly listen to it and went out to the shops with a bike to act as a sherpa.

Market Drayton has three supermarkets, Asda, Morrisons and Lidl. The hunt for my preferred yoghurt and a few other things took us to all three. Asda was first, an older store not very big, but they did have boxes of wine and sawdust for our toilet. The three boxes fitted nicely into the bike front panier and we headed to Lidl next.

We don’t often come across a Lidl and it warranted a good look round. Plenty of the things we were after but no parsnips for our Sunday roast. In the chilled section there were plenty of free range chickens waiting for us. At about £2 less per bird than other supermarkets I hunted through for the two biggest. Our freezer had space for one once it was jointed and the other would be for dinner tonight. Once the full trolley had been loaded onto the bike I popped into Morrisons to see if they could fill any of the gaps we still had. Mostly successful, apart from my yoghurt, I’m going to try a substitute as I know there is very little chance of finding the one I prefer on the remainder of the Shroppie.

Special offers of booze were sat by the front door. I know if Fatso (my Dad) was still around he’d have sniffed out the offer and a special trip would have been planned. If my Mum was still around I’d have to look no further than the green litre bottles of gin for her Mothers Day present. I’m not sure what she’d have made of todays fashion for gin everywhere. Either she’d have embraced it with her glass or poo pooed it as a fad, sticking to her Gordons with Schweppes tonic, ‘Not slimline, Thank you!’ I am not fond of the stuff, I suspect it has something to do with having had too much whilst I was in the womb!

Back at the boat we were relieved that the boat in front had moved on, this meant that we would stay put for the rest of the day. The doors were opened up and Tilly allowed to come and go for the rest of the afternoon.

One chicken was chopped up and skinned, put into freezer bags, making four meals in the waiting. The carcass put in a saucepan on the stove for stock. The second chicken was accompanied by a leek, an onion, carrots, thyme and a jot of wine into my cast iron pot and put next to the stock for four hours. Checking it after a couple of hours proved a mistake as it’s legs made a bid for freedom and the lid didn’t want to sit back on top of the pot tightly! Foil was needed. Once the four hours was complete the chicken came out and was nestled in amongst the roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips for twenty minutes to brown up the skin. This worked a treat. The chicken totally cooked was falling to bits and cooking it for the most part on top of the multifuel stove had saved us an hours worth of gas.

The end result was very tasty indeed, the gravy was almost tasty enough to have just on it’s own. I’ll have mastered all varieties of stove top roasts and then it won’t get lit for months!

0 locks, 0 miles, 6 boarded up windows, 3 supermarkets, 3 boxes, 1 bale sawdust, 2 chickens, 3 leeks, 1 bag potatoes, 1 bag carrots, 2 Chernobyl parsnips, 2 cheese twists, 4 hours in the field, 0 woofers allowed, 4 hours on the stove, 1 tasty chicken.

Shroppie Sunset. 10th March

Audlem Lock 3 to River Tem Aqueduct

As ever on a Saturday we were on the hunt for a newspaper. With just over a mile to walk or cycle back to Audlem you would have thought that would have been where we headed to. But it was raining when we woke and due to continue for a couple of hours (Frank wouldn’t have been put off!). So we decided to sit out the rain and then continue onwards to reach Market Drayton where there had to be one copy of our paper left.

The towpath would change sides today, so we made use of it being on the easier side to empty  the yellow water tank, once it had stopped raining. Then we pushed off and continued our climb. There are quite a few locks on the Main Shroppie, but they are grouped in flights, with the exception of Wheaton Aston lock and the stop lock at the end of the canal. We had two more to do of the Audlem flight to be able to tick them off.

The cottage by the top lock is having quite a bit of work done to it. We’d heard rumours of a large extension being built. At first glance it does look huge, but then you realise that the original lock cottage was single story and they have extended some of this upwards. It’s not going to be an architectural masterpiece, but the large first floor window will have great views down the flight. Due to all the building works the little cabin, normally full of cakes and goodies, was empty. No need to have spare change in your pocket today. Maybe there will be some treats put out for Easter?

After a gap of just over a mile we arrived at the bottom of the Adderley flight. These have older wooden, slightly rotting, bottom gates, these I can normally kick open, the metal ones are not so easy. My back feeling much better today I gave them a shove to open them up. Sadly my legs are not long enough and I’m not brave enough to hop back over the gap with one gate closed to close them again. So there was still a walk round to close the bottom gates.

There were a few walkers on the towpath, some of them helped as they went, bottom gates on empty locks miraculously opened before us, Thank you. Reaching the top didn’t take us long and then it was the three or so miles to Market Drayton. Mick paused in a bridge hole at one point as he had moved our starboard centre line to port (it’s the longer of the two) to make life easier, but now as the towpath was changing sides it would be better for it to return to starboard.

The first stretch of moorings at Market Drayton are noisy with a busy road. Then there are permanent moorings which you can moor opposite, but only overnight as you’d be in their way should they want to head off on a cruise. The short stretch that followed didn’t appeal either so we carried on past Betton Wharf and under the next bridge where there was plenty of space for us. Here Tilly would have trees and a playing field to amuse herself.

Mick patiently had lunch before he headed into town for our paper. Asda didn’t do well, so he had to venture further to WH Smiths and then Lidl for a few essentials. We’ll venture out tomorrow to stock the cupboards, we’re almost out of wine!

The remainder of the afternoon I popped a large pot of chilli on the stove to gently cook and set about checking a couple of knitting and crochet patterns for some friends in Scarborough. Animated Objects are enlisting local community groups to make them a mass of poppys for their ‘Stories Of Remembrance’ project which will be on display on Armistice Day. Before sending out the patterns they wanted to make sure that they weren’t written in gobbledygook, an extra pair of eyes is always useful.

This evening we have been treated to a very red sky. A couple of years ago we had a spectacular sunset near Norbury Junction, the Shroppie knows how to do sunsets.

7 locks, 5.09 miles, 0 cakes, 2 almost dry boaters, 1 smiling boat, 1 disused workshop, 2 spring lines, 1 mid afternoon paper, 3 poppys, 1 vat of chilli, 1 very red sky.

In Our Favour. 9th March

Above Audlem Lock 14 to above Audlem  Lock 3

The washing machine and dishwasher were put to use before we set off as we’d be filling up before going too far today. The chap on the plant boat behind us found me a very healthy looking Thyme plant to replace the sad looking one we’ve been transporting around the system for the last few months. My risottos will be flavoursome again.

The water point in our pound was being used so we made use of the empty lock to reach the one outside the Shroppie Fly. A boat appeared from the next lock and managed to squeeze itself in behind a boat that appeared to be moored on the lock landing. We then pulled out of the lock and straight onto the water point freeing up the lock for the descending boat. They were none too happy about the lock landing being occupied by a trading boat, setting up for the weekend.

Rubbish disposed off we had quite a wait for the tap to fill Oleannas water tank. Just as we were finishing a boat was starting to ascend the lock next to us, so we pushed off to take advantage of the next lock being in our favour.

Mick brought Oleanna into the lock past the fierce bywash  which can pin a slow moving boat to the side. Once up there was a decision to make. Here is the last pound where you can moor before the next nine locks in the flight, my back had been twinging yesterday, so should we stop for the day, stop for lunch or carry on to the top. My back seemed to be behaving so we decided to carry on, with the hope that the locks ahead of us would be in our favour, meaning less work all round.

No kicking bottom gates open today, so there was an extra walk around each chamber. Mick would bring Oleanna in, I’d close the gates, open up the paddles and then when we were both happy I’d walk up to the next lock to open it ready. Once Oleannas lock was full, Mick would drop the paddles, bring her out and close the gate before moving on into the next chamber. This meant a lot of hanging around for me as every lock was in our favour, only two needed a paddle lifting to equalise the levels.

Coming out of lock 6 Oleanna got attracted by the weir too much, despite having been tied to a bollard. Mick tried to reverse her out of the situation, but being in the entrance of the lock didn’t help as there wasn’t enough room to swing the back round, if only our bow thruster worked! There was nothing for it but for Mick to step off and give her a good pull to straighten her up and try again.

Lock 3 has a fierce bywash and caught Mick by surprise. The water bubbles up from underneath some boards which make it not so obvious of the force. This resulted in a record breaking near five drawer incident in the galley. Nothing broken, just drawer runners straining under the weight.

Here we found ourselves a spot at the end of the 48 hour moorings, let Tilly out and settled down for a late lunch. Luckily we’d decided that it was too late in the day to hang the washing out as soon after the heavens opened. Another boat arrived an hour or so later up the flight, suspect they were a bit soggy.

11 locks, 1.21 miles, 2 miles at least with all the walking round included, 1 going down, 0 cheese bought, £3.50 thyme plant, 11 empty waiting for us, 6 orange poos, 1 soggy moggy.

The Village Of The Damned. 8th March

Audlem

Snow was falling when we woke, but it wasn’t settling as it had rained overnight. The snow turned into sleet and then rain again. All this white weather and winds that accompanied it put Tilly off going out. But the sun soon came out, the temperatures rose and the world became cat friendly again. By now we’d decided to stay put for the day and have a bit of an explore ourselves. However we needed Tilly to be home to be able to do this.

Tilly sometimes comes home when called, but other times she is far too busy with something to even bother to hear me. Today was one of the latter occasions, which wasn’t then helped by a boat pulling up behind us. This was the plant boat we’d seen last week in Nantwich. They have a Collie who spends all day every day running back and forth from bow to stern, Connie is on a constant duck hunt! With Connie sat at our stern I opened up the cratch for Tilly and we settled down to have lunch.

Tilly eventually showed her head out from a huge pile of brambles only to be spotted by Connie who charged forward barking. Her owner called her back and the only harm done was raised heart rates all round. Tilly soon made the dash across the towpath to the side hatch and safety. What a lot of noise! If only woofers didn’t woof, I’d get on better with them.

Now free, we headed up to the village to have a look round. First we stopped at the Canal shop by the Shroppie Fly pub. Here is the best stocked canal book shop on the network. Shelves upon shelves of books tell of the history, design and life of the canals. Upstairs is a floor dedicated to crafts, wool, tapestry, beads, rug making, allsorts. So I had a good look round before Mick ventured up the stairs, he didn’t need to make use of the chair set aside for husbands though!

The doors were open on the church, St James the Great. Inside the church was fairly standard, nothing stood out as a gem, maybe we missed something. Built on a hill overlooking the village, possibly an old Celtic burial ground the church dates back to the 13th Century. It commands it’s position with paths leading around made from old grave stones.

We walked on to have a look around the cemetery, we can see this from our current mooring. Two fine chapels Grade 2 listed sit either side of an archway leading into the cemetery which was founded in 1872. What a view from your final resting place, overlooking the valley towards the canal. Here several things stood out to us.

A large block of polished stone remembers those who were buried in the paupers graves here, many very young children. An unusual headstone of glass sat amongst all the black granite. Etched on the circle CLARKE and on the back of the grey base stone ‘Sleep well old Biddy’. I can’t find any more information on who this was for and why it is such an unusual design.

Then a low circular yew hedge surrounds a short tree with paving and a stone bench. On it’s back a list of names. This is an area dedicated to the memory of eight local young people who lost their lives over the period of a year in the 1990’s.

The catalogue of tragedy began in October 1994, when Alastair Clarkson died in a car crash, 12 days after his 19th birthday. His best friend Stephen Mayne meet a similar fate only months later. In April 1995, a head-on crash with a milk tanker killed four teenage friends - Abigail, Simon Dakin and Jason Knight, and Robert Hawes. There was talk of a curse on the village and by August the "curse" had claimed three more lives. Phillip Wibberley, 23, Stephen Mayne and his girlfriend Charlotte Nield, both 18, from Congleton, died after their car careered off the road at Cholmondeley, near Audlem.
A week later, Neil Brookes, 19, who lived in nearby Nantwich, was also killed in a car crash.

With only a population of around 1800, the loss of eight young people left a big hole in the village. You can read more about The Village Of the Damned here (link). A lovely memorial.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 snow flurry, 2 hours, 1 pesky woofer keeping me from my lunch! 0 craft purchases, 1 church, 2 chapels, 1 faded bird, 8 lost lives, 1 glass headstone, 1st flowering daffs, 1 twinged back, not good with 13 locks tomorrow!

The Endangered Bus. 7th March

Moss Hall Aqueduct to above Audlem Lock 14

We don’t often get going before breakfast and even more rare for us to move before we’ve had a cuppa in bed, but today was one of those days.

Jaq from NB Valerie had mentioned the Wednesday market at Market Drayton, we always like a good market. To reach there by boat wasn’t going to happen due to us taking it slowly, we also want to have a better look around Audlem before we move on. So we looked at buses. First off we found that it would actually take us between 2 hours 40 and 3 hours 30 to get there! But Market Drayton was only a 7 miles walk which could be done quicker. Then Mick spied in our Pearson’s guide that on Wednesdays there is a one off bus that runs from Nantwich to Market Drayton via Audlem in the morning and then returns early afternoon. We could go to the market!

Where we’d moored yesterday we were on pins in quite soft ground and Mick was a little concerned about leaving Oleanna there. So we decided to move her to where there would be some rings, this meant starting the flight. But luckily for us between the first five locks there are plenty of visitor moorings. Not knowing if there would be space for us we decided to set off at 8am, giving us time to find somewhere and have breakfast before the bus.

The view out over the fields this morning was even better than it had been yesterday, it was a shame to be moving away from  it. Up lock 15 and there was plenty of space, but also tree cover. I walked up to have a look at the next pound. Here there were quite a few boats but enough space for us to tag on the end and still be on rings, so we carried on up the second lock and pulled in.

Once breakfast was done we walked to the bus stop outside the church and joined the regulars awaiting the 75 D&G bus. Sadly this buses days are numbered. With cuts from councils and the fact that this bus crosses into Shropshire from Cheshire it will stop running next month. It was quite full, almost all bus pass holders. We paid our £5 return fare each and sat down. Everyone knew everyone apart from us, it’s obviously a regular trip for many.

Dropped off at the bus station next to Lidl, large banners guided us across the road to the market. The Wednesday market takes over the streets and I suspect in the summer it is really quite large, getting on for 114 stalls. It has been running for the last 750 years, so is well established. A small indoor market opens on Saturdays as well. Most of the stalls are cheap tools and accessories, pet food , clothing and  couple of veg stalls. The indoor market has fish, meat, cheese and plenty of eggs.

Every stall had people looking at the wares apart from one, The Meat King. Here the butcher stood in his open sided van, microphone attached to his head, doing his best to loudly lure punters to purchase his bargains. ‘All these sausages, bacon and horseshoe gammon for £10!’ His meat looked like it had come from a toy food stall, pale non descript sausages, identical packs of bacon, chops that must have been clones of one another or made from Play Doh. Nothing took our fancy. Every now and again a punter would approach only to have a conversation with the butcher where his side was broadcast to the whole of Market Drayton. These punters seemed to us as though they were plants. They would come for a bit of banter, hearing about his Uncle Joe, make a purchase and then leave. We speculated that they would return to the back of his van a short while later depositing the meat, then after half an hour they would return to buy it all again! I’m most probably doing the chap a disservice and his meat may well be tasty.

We had plenty of time to wonder around the town, checking out other shops, we even found the barbers where Mick once had his hair cut years ago. The Deli did best out of us and provided us with some lunch which we sat and ate on a bench surrounded by mobility scooters. A quick look round Lidl before we headed back to the bus stop, their free range chicken looked cheap, we’ll be back for one of those.

The town had been buzzing, everywhere full of people. I suspect on other days of the week it is very different. How many people come by bus? How many won’t be able to next month?

Our return journey was as swift as it had been out and we walked back to the canal with a friendly lady who moors in the same pound. The boat in front had left so we moved up and got a better view across to the hills again. Tilly spent the afternoon exploring and came to help when Mick had a hair cut sat in the sun on the bench next to Oleanna. Is spring almost here?

2 locks, 0.42 miles all before breakfast, 75 bus, 3 more before it is extinct, 7 fat balls, 6 sanding blocks, 1 savoy, 1 bag pizza dough, 1 jar hoi sin sauce, 2 cheese twists, grade 3 trim, 1 imposter, 1 better nose and 6 whiskers required.