Scarecrows, a dodgy man and a lovely mooring

Sunday 13th August; Penkridge to Tixall Wide

We woke quite early to the clonks and bangs that signify the sun is shining on the side of the boat.   We didn’t get away till well after 10 though; the Co-op didn’t open till 10 and we didn’t think to do the top-up shopping yesterday.   There are recycling bins in the village too – only small ones so I just disposed of a couple of plastic milk bottles.

It was a lovely morning and apart from the M6 roaring along beside the canal it was delightful.  We did feel a bit smug though.  Plenty of boats on the move too. At Teddesley Wharf we spotted Georgie Kate, the cake trip boat, which was being readied for another trip by the looks of it.

At Acton Trussell we spotted several figures slouching around in gardens.  We suspect the village had recently had a scarecrow festival or something like that.

We stopped for lunch just after Radford Bridge.  We would have liked a roast dinner in the pub, but it was gone 1 o’clock and there would have been a considerable wait so a sandwich it was.

At the big bend at St Thomas Bridge we passed the new moorings where you can stop to look at the work being done on the link to Stafford.  But we didn’t.  We carried on past the mobile homes and the garden where the figure of a dodgy man has been hiding behind a bush for years.

We were sure there had been other figures in that garden – pigs maybe, under the tree?  But they seemed to have gone or been moved.  On we went to the aqueduct over the Sow.  We came round a sharp bend to find a boat crossing the aqueduct;  last time we came this way, the vegetation had been sparse enough to let you see across the bend and get advance warning of any need for avoidance – which we had to do rather hastily this time.  The Sow looked very placid.

There were no boats waiting at Tixall lock; just a robin watching proceedings.

We crept towards the Wide quite slowly as we wanted to be able to moor away from the crowds but without having to reverse.  We found a lovely spot just before the Wide itself, with one other boat just visible round the bend and two cruisers which arrived later and moored a way behind us.

I walked up to the Wide to have a look – there would have been room to moor, but we would have been cheek by jowl with everyone else so we were glad we stopped where we did.  Time for a bit of baking and a lovely quiet evening.

9 miles 5 locks