Sunny, mostly, to Haywood junction

Saturday 28^th September; Aston marina to Haywood junction (ish).

Aston marina is lit by fairy lights at night, all over the restaurant buildings and outdoor pods, and round the bridge between the two mooring basins.  There was live music too, but once that had stopped it was very peaceful.  We woke to bright sunshine and no wind, so it was easy to slide out of our berth and trickle over to the wharf for fuel and a pump-out, both good value for money.  It was almost 10.30 by the time we were properly on the move, in glorious sunshine.  I wouldn’t say it was warm, but it certainly stopped being cold.  We had a lovely cruise down to Sandon lock, where a boat was already coming up the lock. 

With three boats waiting below, and their crew manning the bottom gates, I had nothing to do – absolutely nothing – and was sent on my way to walk the dog down to Salt bridge.  It’s about a mile. 

At the bridge we swapped over, and I steered while Dave walked to the next bridge, shortly before Weston.  At Weston lock a familiar boat was coming up – Brian and Diana on Harnser.

After a brief ‘hello’ we were in the lock and going down.  The top beam has a running repair, as CRT seem to have got a bit behind with gate maintenance.  We’ll see another example tomorrow.

Weston top gate

We’d hoped to stop before Ingestre bridge for lunch, but there were a lot of fishermen sbout.

Huh, that was meant to be our lunch stop

There was a space on a 48-hour mooring on the way to Hoo Mill lock where we stopped for a lunch break, before going on to Haywood junction, where I wanted to visit the shop.

If the northern part hadn't been cancelled, the HS2 bridge would have smashed the woodland on the right to oblivion

Unfortunately all the rough mooring spots were occupied by fishermen, it being the weekend,  and the one space remaining on the ‘official’ moorings before the junction had a fisherman right on the end, so preventing any boat from getting into the space.  So we turned onto the Staffs and Worcester, hoping for a spot on Tixall wide.  But it was rammed – well, it’s a lovely Saturday, so hardly surprising!

What a beauty

We made a slow turn with minimal revs, enjoying the view, before cruising back to Swivel bridge and mooring shortly before the permanent offside moorings.  We're not going into Birmingham via the Wolverhampton flight!  After buying meat, veg, some snacks for tomorrow, a packet of oatcake mix and some Snugsbury’s ice cream, it was time for the job I’ve been putting off all summer – cleaning the flue.  A couple of years ago I foolishly turned down Jennie’s offer (ex Tentatrice) of their flue brush when they sold their boat.  At the time I couldn’t think where we’d have stored it on Bonjour, but later on I realised there were a couple of places it would have easily fitted.  And, just like last year, I berated myself for such a stupid decision.  This year, rather than tying a cord round some holly sprigs and pulling them up the chimney, a messy job which has to be repeated, I thought I’d tie them to a pole and use it like a flue brush.  Apart from the fiddly business of getting the baffle plate out of the stove, it should all be pretty straightforward.  Hah!  It may have been fine in principle, but I had failed to appreciate two important points – one, there was nothing to stop the holly sprigs sliding up the pole once I’d started pushing them down the flue, and two, after they’d come off and I’d poked them down as far as they would go, I remembered there was a bend in the flue to stop them dropping out into the stove….  I stuck my arm up the flue from the stove end, getting very sooty in the process, and failing to get more than a couple of them out.  So after a bit of a think I got my secateurs and cut myself a longish but flexible branch of sycamore, from the hedge and eventually managed to push the holly right through and finish the job.  I do like to give my readers the opportunity for a good laugh.

Not very much soot to show for it either

What might Dave have been doing all this time, you might ask?  Well, he was making a good job of painting between the gunwale and the rubbing strake of the starboard side, so now that job has been completed for both sides.

The fire burned beautifully, since you ask, and we had a very cosy evening.

9 miles, 3 locks