Thursday 5th October
Yesterday we stayed at Audlem, which was just as well because I had exceeded the stated dose the night before and wasn’t up to much! Mind you it may have done me good to have been out in the (very) fresh air doing a flight of locks!
Today the forecast was terrible, there was supposed to be strong winds and heavy rain but it wasn’t too bad when we got up so we decided to leave anyway and brave the elements. This didn’t turn out to be a bad move because apart from the strong gusty wind, which did cause Ken to have a couple of crashes and reduced our glass collection somewhat, it was a really nice day. I maintain that the reason it did not rain was because I put all my waterproof gear on in preparation! In the end we not only did the 15 locks at Audlem but the 5 locks at Adderley as well.
As is the case with quite a few locks on the system, several of the Audlem locks have stalls on them selling various produce eg. meat, veg, eggs, jam, etc and nearly at the top is a stall selling home made cakes. Obviously I couldn’t resist and got Ken to buy me some scones! When we got to the next stall at the top of Adderley locks we didn’t need any cakes (had some of theirs last year though, delicious) but we did get a large bag of potatoes, dug yesterday apparently. This lock has a bit of a small holding attatched to it and some sheep were grazing on the lock. There were horses and chickens in the field and a wonderful, huge, hairy pig grubbing around too, very pastoral!
We eventually moored up in Market Drayton and went in to town when we got here mid afternoon. We were pleased to see the Netto store had been taken over by Asda which meant we didn’t have to go all the way to Morrison’s for our shopping (lazy buggers). We made the mistake of going for a pint in the Salopian Arms where the ‘award winning’ beer was not to our taste, mine was too citrussy and Ken’s was too bitter. We then made another mistake by going across the road to the Stafford Hotel where the £2 a pint real ale (from Stone) was bloody awful!
The forecasted heavy rain showers, accompanied by even stronger winds than usual, began in earnest after we got back to the boat so that didn’t bother us a lot. Our next stop will be at Shebdon Wharf to get a new zip in our cratch cover. We’re going to stay here tomorrow and I will phone and arrange it. I will be glad to get it done, especially if these windy conditions continue.
