Tuesday 27th August
It has been another lovely day today and we went to Stafford on the bus this morning with Mick and Cathy (Arriva Day Saver £6). We have been to Stafford twice before, once from here and once from Wheaton Aston. When we got there it was as if we had never been there before in our lives, we couldn’t remember where anything was!
After a bit of a stroll round we discovered the place where the bus had stopped the first time we went there from Wheaton Aston (near Sainsbury’s) and things started to fall into place. We did manage to make tits of ourselves though. We were looking at one of those maps they have on a notice board in the street trying to locate the market square. We stopped this gentleman who was passing and asked him where the market square was in relation to where we were then. He said you’re in it! Aaaargh, what a pair of idiots! He thought it was really funny.
Then he asked what we were looking for, we said the fishing tackle shop and he pointed to it! Brilliant and it wasn’t as if we hadn’t been there before either, because we had! And we had already walked through the market square earlier on when we first got to Stafford as well! We’re hopeless.
After doing a bit of shopping, shoes and fishing things for Ken and a load of stuff from Wilkinson’s, we bought a sandwich from Gregg’s and sat in the market square in the sun listening to a chap playing a saxophone. Actually it may have been the same chap who was playing a saxophone last time we were there.
We met up with Mick and Cathy in the Wetherspoon’s (where else) and had a couple of pints. Then we got the bus back to Great Haywood and went in the Clifford Arms for another one (and a wee) before the walk back to the boats.
This evening Ken is fishing again but with not much success so far in fact he hasn’t caught a thing!
Tomorrow we are off on our travels again and there has been a slight change of plan. I thought the fishing match we are trying to avoid was next weekend but it is the following one so we have plenty of time to get to the other side of Burton before it all kicks off. With that in mind we have decided to go down to Trent Lock for a bit before we put the boat in to Mercia while we go to Gunthorpe to see Mum and Dave.
Mick and Cathy were on their way to the Langollen- again, then they were going to do the Leicester Ring on the way back to Mercia. They have now decided to do the Leicester Ring first so they are coming down to Trent Lock with us, from where they can go up the Soar and do the Leicester Ring that way round.
We are both leaving tomorrow but they will probably go at stupid o’clock and we will go late as usual! We will meet up later, after a shopping stop at Morrison’s in Rugeley, at The Plum Pudding in Armitage, or thereabouts.
