Friday 13th August
We haven’t done the 10 mile, 6 lock journey we had planned to do today. We have done 7 miles and 5 locks though. It has been raining on and off all day, although it did stop for a while when we were at Gailey getting water. While we were doing the lock there we met a couple who we had previously seen in Barlaston and Stone in April. They had been up the Leeds and Liverpool and the Huddersfield and had just come off the Shroppie. We gleaned some useful information about shops, pubs and moorings for future use.
The forecast was for torrential downpours with thunder this afternoon so we decided to stop at Coven before the weather deteriorated too much. Handily there is a pub nearby and even more handily it has a covered smoking area to sit in. Just as well because it started raining again as soon as we got there! There were a couple of people sitting there when we arrived and they were soon joined by another chap. It isn’t very big, this smoking area, so it got a bit snug.
As we are near Wolverhampton now everyone has, what I consider to be (wrongly probably), a Brummie accent which, for some reason, I find amusing. Anyway, this chap was full of chat and he had us in stitches. We were talking about, amongst other things, picking up dog poo and he was saying he leaves his in the garden for about a week before he collects it up, then gets a carrier bag full! Then he told us about his mate’s dog who has it’s own composting toilet in the garden. Another mate of his had asked him how he got the dog to use the toilet on it’s own, not thinking that he actually had to pick up the poo and put it down there himself! He said (in his Brummie accent) ”What did he expect him to say? ‘Oh look me dog’s on the bog,’ God what an idiot!” We fell about laughing.
In the end the torrential rain and thunder didn’t materialise but it was a bit chilly so I lit the fire. I told you there wasn’t going to be a month this year when I wouldn’t have to have a fire! We will do the rest of our journey to the Shroppie tomorrow.
