Tuesday 1st June
Rabbits, rabbits! Pinch punch etc!
The all day rain they forecast for today never really materialised. After an early downpour it turned a bit drizzly and showery but not too bad. We had already decided to stay here and do some shopping. For a start we need an umbrella! It is about half an hour’s walk into the town centre from here and about an hour and a half coming back (via the Queen’s Head!) loaded with shopping. First I had to mend the hole in my rucksack that was threatening to cause me serious embarrassment by allowing my shopping to escape onto the path behind me! Glad I averted that particular disaster.
Would you believe there wasn’t a large, golfing style umbrella to be had in Congleton? Not even from the outdoors Army and Navy type shop. Plenty of pathetic little fold up things but no big ones. They must have sold them all last Saturday when it poured down all day! We did a stirling job of ignoring the lure of the cherry shortbread, fruit slices and other fabulous looking cakes in one of the (too) many cake shops in the High St. Next it was into Superdrug for some more reading glasses. Mysteriously the ones we already had seemed to end up in the canal along with countless other of our belongings! The ones Ken chose look like Fabio Capello’s glasses, just in time for the world cup. We then cornered the market in Piritons, someone still has hay fever, bless! While we were in Boot’s the lady behind the counter said we had nice tans and asked where had we been? We told her we lived on a boat etc so she said ‘Tanned and retired – clear off!’ It was so funny.
Tuesday is market day here, there is a farmer’s market and a covered market so we went for a browse. We bought a couple of gilets. Ken’s has numerous zip up pockets, very handy for the reading glasses! We also bought half a dozen free range eggs. Unfortunately they went free range in my bag and we made it back with only 2 whole ones!
After going to Morrison’s we made our way back laden with goodies (mostly meat actually, not beer!) to the canal. It’s thirsty work all this shopping and walking so we thought a pint of Abbott was in order. There are 28 very steep steps up from the canal to the Queen’s Head but we tackled them manfully!
Tomorrow we are off to Harding’s Junction, Kidsgrove where we will rejoin the T and M. At this point we were going to continue up North but now we are going back to Stone to meet Mum and Dave in a couple of weekends time. Then we are going to do the Caldon Canal again as my camera wasn’t working last time and the Leek Arm will have reopened by then so we can go up there as well. Then we are going down the Staffs and Worcester. That is the current plan anyway.
