Continuous Cruising Week 12, 20th-26th September 2021
It’s moving Monday. We have been at this isolated mooring for two days and may well have stayed longer but you may have noticed I wrote “isolated” not “isolated and peaceful”. There was just one dwelling anywhere near, a farm around a quarter of a mile away. Sadly, for us, the residents there had a super sound system and liked their music played
LOUD, LOUD, LOUD.
They played music, not our idea of music of course, morning, noon and night. Fortunately they went to bed around the same time as us but got up slightly later so it was not a disaster just a constant irritant that did not drown our TV sound but did intrude upon the quiet bits.
Our beautiful but noisy mooring.
We set of towards Tixall Wide, where we plan to stay for a few days while I do some more maintenance tasks. We continued our journey up the Trent and Mersey Canal; the canal follows the route of the River Trent from the outskirts of Rugeley to beyond the junction with the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at Great Haywood Junction.
There are a number of large houses in the area built for the rich, among them Bishton Hall, a former public school, which was recently bought (August 2019) by Hansons Auctioneers, the company owned by auctioneer and TV presenter Charles Hanson who then auctioned the contents which racked in a million quid.
Being only a short cruise this morning with just two locks to pass through, we were soon at the Great Hayward Junction where we intended to turn left onto the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, but first some jiggery pokery.
The water point was beyond the junction, only a little, but still beyond. We went on and managed to get the last spot on the water point landing. Another boat was also trying to get on the water point so I suggested he breast up, (tie up alongside us), which he did. We waited for three other boats to fill their tanks then filled ours when the boat breasted up to us was able to move into a spot in front of us. We then reversed off the landing and continued until we were back the right side of the junction and were able to turn onto, for us, another brand new canal The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. This canal was built in 1771 by James Brindley and was part of his "Grand Cross" plan for waterways connecting the major ports at Hull, Liverpool, Bristol and London. The canal was a success and despite competition from other new canals and the railways and, although falling steadily from 1860, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Company paid dividends to its shareholders until nationalisation in 1948. In 1959 the British Transport Commission planned to close the canal but it was saved by a volunteer group, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Society. In 1968 the canal was reclassified as a cruiseway, and the following year all of it was declared a Conservation Area.
After travelling up the canal for a little more than a half mile we moored at arguably the most popular spot on the canal - Tixall Wide. As it’s name implies it is a wide section of canal, around 300ft (100m) wide. There are two stories as to why this section is so wide, the first is that the owners of Tixall Hall would only give permission for the canal to cross their land if it looked, from their house, like a lake not a canal and the second that Brindley took advantage of a pre-existing natural lake where, according to legend, Isaac Walton learned to fish. The Tixall Hall sadly long since demolished, was where, in 1586, Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned for two weeks.
This is such a beautiful spot we have decided to stay here for some days, partly chilling and partly wrestling with the engine bay refurbishing, for which to do a top notch job a small victorian child is needed to get into all the tiny spaces but as using child labour is definitely not ”PC” this fat lump will have to do the best he can'
Although we probably did not need shopping we have learned that there is a farm shop back at Great Hayward Junction so today (Tuesday) we took a wander down there, it’s only just over a half mile so no great problem. The farm shop was a bit of a mish-mash in that it had all sorts of goods for sale that really did not seem to fit with the idea of a traditional farm shop. However the greengrocery was top notch, the butchery seemed first class (we will be back later in the week for a shoulder of lamb for Sunday dinner) and the other food departments also appeared to sell only the best quality available. Not cheap but very good. We will go back before we leave Tixall Wide. The sunset tonight was quite beautiful and lasted for ages.
We had a very pleasant Wednesday, we wandered to Great Haywood Junction partly for the exercise on such a pleasant day but mainly as an excuse to put off climbing into the engine bay, but I won’t be able to put it off all day. I did get down into the bay in the afternoon but didn’t get very much done. The further into the bay I get the less space I have and the more difficult it gets.
Another problem has come to light. Tucked right in the corner of the engine is the hot water cylinder, it is supported on a square piece of ply which in turn rests on two timber bearers, giving a gap between the baseplate and the ply of around a half inch and it is not possible for me to remove the cylinder and it’s mounting board to refurbish the baseplate without removing the engine and that simply ain’t going to happen. So I cleaned as far as I could under the cylinder and then sploshed lots of rust convertor around it and as far under it as I could get and that will have to do.
Continuous Cruising Week 13, 27th Sept' - 3rd Oct’ 2021
The reason we have been moving very slowly is that I have an engine service booked on the 6th October and I have told the RCR (River, Canal Rescue) that we will be somewhere on the The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal between Great Haywood Junction and Aldersley Junction a distance of just 21 miles then and on the 30th Sept’ I need to ring the RCR to let them know exactly where we are so the engineer can find us.
Today (Monday) we had to move ‘cos we were running short of water and if I were to finish the jobs I had started I needed to get some bits and bobs so we went back to Rugeley. It was an interesting cruise. Leaving the mooring we had occupied for the past six days the first task was to turn round. With Tixall Wide being some 300 yards (100 metres) wide I simply put the helm over and turned 180˚ - Easy Peasy. Just as well that was easy as just a half mile away was Haywood Junction we needed to turn right onto the Trent and Mersey Canal then reverse to the water point. It should have been easy but for the wind. I turned right got the boat turning in the right direction, put it in reverse and the wind pushed the bow in the opposite way to that I needed. Repeating this sequence a number of times I eventually got the boat on the water point and we were able to fill with water, dispose of our rubbish and swap (at an unbelievably high price) our empty gas cylinder for a full one. Jobs all jobed we set off for Rugeley. The first of the two locks went very well, Sue assisted a boat coming up then we went down, quick and slick.
We have not done much cruising in the rain, but we did today, the rain persisted down, stair rods. Fortunately not for long and by the time we reached our second and final lock of the day the sun was starting to peep around the clouds, just as well as there was a queue at the next lock which took us over, well over, an hour and a half to get through.
We soon after arrived in Rugeley, continuing through the town we checked out the available moorings, turned at the winding hole went back to town and took a pleasant mooring just yards from that we had last week.
It occurred to us on Tuesday that, as we have everything to hand, shops, laundrette etc., etc., we should stay her until the service is done. OK it’s miles from the water point but the service is in eight days and we have water for around fourteen (if we are very careful) so no issue there. The remainder of the week was spent (Wednesday) doing the washing and Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday Shopping - well we don’t often moor close enough to not just one but two supermarkets to get a months food stocks.
We have been desperately worried about the fuel shortage. We have used around 180 litres of diesel since 5th July and last filling up on 20th August, thats seven weeks so means we used around 20 litres a week so as long as we can fill up in the next 10 weeks we should be OK 😁 😁 😁 😁 and just to rub it in we use red diesel with a base price of around 85p although that is what we pay for the proportion of the fuel we use for heating and hot water, we do have to pay duty on the portion we use for propulsion which is still, I understand, not quite the duty you all pay for the diesel you put in your cars.