Bye bye Caldon

Sunday 1st June 2018

Sun in our eyes woke us, Graham had his private sunbeam piercing through a gap in the rear slide whilst mine was coming through a roof vent – we must be pointing West then.

We set off and passed down through Engine lock to move into Milton where we stopped for a shopstop. You know you are a ‘special’ person when you hand over your Co-op divi card to use you credit rather than cash to pay and the till operator is so impressed he shows the other staff the balance details on the card. It was the most they had ever seen available to spend on a card, the divi earnt from our pre-paid funeral plans that we purchased earlier in the year. “ Become famous, or a somebody, before you die! “ could be a slogan for a future Co-operative funeral plan advertisment.

Brenda spotted this sign on a wall in Milton that amused her.

On our approach to bridge 13 we noticed a heavily laden cherry tree on the offside, ripe for the picking. It was not on private property so we pulled over and helped ourselves to 1 3/4 lb of lovely cherries – no scurvy this trip!

At Ivy House lift bridge there were too many boats on the moorings for our liking. Another stoppage at this bridge? CaRT had been called and apparently were on their way so we pulled over ready for a long wait. Immediately the first CaRT person arrived and used the ‘engineering’ panel in the equipment box to work the bridge. Then, as we passed through, a second person arrived to assist so no delays (apart from waiting for the two northbound boats to pass through) at all. Thanks ‘Sunday Call-out Men’ for your prompt response.

Dissapointment of the day week month, the Indian street food and sweets shop at Planet lock has closed. I hope it was because it was a success and bigger premises were needed!

We moored for a late lunch in the shade of the trees just after Bedford St staircase locks. NB Molly Rose passed by and Graham noticed the steerer had a snazzy hat retaining strap, windy days for the use of. We got talking to his wife and so they breasted up against us as they wanted the mooring for a couple of days once we had finished with it.

They are New Zealanders who visit for 5 months every summer to use their boat but are now selling nb Molly Rose because they want to move on to other things having done as much of the UK canal system as they have been able to do. We had a good chat and an un-ashamed Gongoozle as three hire boats tackled the staircase. No one got into peril and we just watched as they sorted themselves out. The most dissadvantaged were a Japanese crew who had difficulty benefitting from others advice as both their boating experience and language skills were very limited. All achieve safe passage and we had a lovely lunch stop. Thankyou John & Diana (nb Molly Rose) I’ll be making some hat clips soon.

We moved onto the Etruria services for a waterfill and rubbish disposal, then followed two other boats down the Stoke flight only meeting one boat coming the other way. Graham used the bike so we had a fairly swift passage although we did catch up nb King Arthur at every lock.

We then went continued on to Trentham to moor for the night as Graham had booked us a table at the Toby Carvery for our Sunday dinner.

Brenda