Thursday 16^th August 2018

Happy Birthday to our Sarah.

And hoping that young people’s A-level results, out today, were what they wanted.

I walked back into Stone first thing this morning to buy a few pieces. One being an upright toilet roll holder. The boat is evolving and we had identified that something to hold all the unused toilet rolls would be an improvement in the bathroom. We came across one yesterday that we thought would do, but had to measure up the space available first.

Also tried to buy a swede from the local greengrocer. He said that he hadn’t been able to get any other than small, gnarled ones that wouldn’t sell. All due to the dry weather we have been having this year. It has been the first time that we have come across anything like this affecting us.

We had a delightful breakfast of an Arbroath smokie with poached eggs on toast.

We then moved on and we were both ready for it. We are aiming for the countryside today, we are both fed up with towns. It had rained all night but was dry come morning, although the sky was quite dark and it was windy. I think this boat is going to be difficult to handle in the wind. We shall see.

After the second lock in Stone we stopped at the service point. Water, toilet cassette, rubbish. Brenda also had a long shower while we were there and washed her hair. It worked out quite well that she could do this and yet we replenished the water at the same time.

As we said, the boat is evolving and anything we decide we are not going to use, we leave at the service points for anybody to claim. It is amazing how quickly stuff disappears. Some pipe fittings, a fishing stool and a bike handle bar basket were gone by the time we left the service point.

After the fourth, and last, lock in Stone, I held the boat alongside while Brenda popped into M&S foodhall, moorings were all taken. Stone had been very busy and there was a steady procession of boats in and out of locks. After Stone Bottom Lock there was over ½ mile of moored boats.

At Aston Lock 26, we came across the mid-point mile marker of the Trent and Mersey Canal. 46 miles to Shardlow and 46 miles from Preston Brook. We had left Preston Brook on 4^th August, almost two weeks ago.

Two weeks to travel 46 miles.

We moored just before bridge 86, no more than 20 feet from the River Trent, and walked up to see the village of Burston. The guide book describes this as “a hamlet apparently untouched by time” and so it turned out. With the part of the village on the canal side of the railway anyway. Most of the houses sit around the village pond. A very peaceful, quiet place. The small church was visited and Brenda wrote in the visitors book putting our address as nb Bridge Street for the first time. Here in the church we read of three brothers aged 20, 25and 26 all being killed in the First World War and all in the last months of the war.

We returned to the boat to find that boats passing us that were giving us too wide a berth were running aground, which was surprising as the canal is quite wide here and some of the boats are only just over the middle of the canal and yet going aground. It must be very shallow. We had quite a bit of fun pulling them off.

The starboard hull side was coated with primer where it was down to the bare metal. The boat now looks as though she has got the pox. She will now, have to be blackened tomorrow before we move on, if move on we do.

Also polished the chrome mushroom vents.

The boat’s exterior is looking very uncared-for and this we must put right, over the next few days.

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Our garden for the night

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Today mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Day Total: 5 locks; 4 miles; 0 Tunnels; 0 Boat Lift; engine running hours 2.8

Overall Total: 157 locks; 314 miles; 15 tunnels; 2 Boat Lifts; engine running hours 176.3

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