Fradley to Tescos Rugeley

Rain. Not heavy, but rain this morning. The forecast last night had suggested it wouldn’t last long, the Met office app suggested it would stop around 10:15. Well they lied! We however wanted to keep up with our day in hand so couldn’t stay laid in bed. Now where did we put those waterproofs? At Christmas Josh, my nephew gave me some new waterproof trousers, these are far better than previous pairs I’ve owned, maybe I should put a new lightweight coat on my list this year.

We ended up setting off a little before 11am. No volunteers visible on the flight this morning, but that’s fine. Up Junction Lock, we were being followed by a workboat full of puddling clay. The crew member walked up to reset the lock behind us, I thought for a while they’d just nod from the other end of the lock, but at Middle Lock we had a conversation. They were headed to just above Shadehouse Lock to do some work there.

A single hander was coming down, it took a little while for him to bow haul his boat out of the lock, he really didn’t want to climb the ladder, I don’t blame him. Another boat approached from above so I could leave the gates for them and on we went, I opted to walk to Wood End Lock.

The HS2 works are still evident although checking my map I’m not sure the digger in a field was anything to do with the new line as it was really quite close to the 90 degree bend, maybe some new housing, maybe not.

At Wood End Lock the cottage still sits behind fencing, we were amazed that all of it’s windows were intact after so many years of being empty. Someone has added some artwork to the lock bridge.

Once up the lock we were on the long pound, slow going passing moored boats. I hitched a ride and had a catch up chat with Frank back in Scarborough. Today his Frankness visitor was Chris who rang me from the ground floor of Franks house whilst I was talking to Frank on the first floor!

The drizzle continued, not too heavy so it wasn’t unpleasant, but the temperature has most definitely dropped, and I looked forward to the stove being lit this evening, we’ll also be digging out our gloves before cruising tomorrow.

A pause for some lunch and a sit down at a handy length of armco. Tilly thought we should stay here, but we didn’t. Onwards. I hopped off to walk again just before Armtitage Tunnel, one boat heading towards us sounded it’s horn, then the tunnel was clear for Oleanna.

Now sunny, the walk was quite pleasant, a breeze making it still worth wearing a coat though. I spotted some Sweet Chestnuts on the ground, their spiky furry husks giving them away. I rolled the husks under my shoes to see if the nut inside would be worth collecting. Nowhere near as big as you get in shops, but I selected the bigger ones and filled a pocket up.

A few boats were on the move and after about 2 miles we approached Rugeley where we planned to moor for the night. The 2 day mooring was empty, we soon found out that one stretch of it was already occupied by a submarine, or maybe it was just a shopping trolley.

First port of call Morrisons pharmacy to see if the NHS app was correct that they do walk in flu jabs. They do, but only if someone hadn’t booked. On the family chat yesterday there had been mention that there was a nationwide shortage of the vaccine, well, it appears not here in Staffordshire. We booked an appointment for 20 minutes time, just long enough to pick up Micks’ prescription from Boots around the corner.

Both jabbed, £13 for a private one if you have a Morrisons card, we then did a top up shop. A few items were missing so I called into Tescos for those.

This evening the stove has been lit, Tilly has hogged the red blanket in front of it whilst Mick reheated some bolognaise sauce and I worked on panto emails and messages. I popped four chestnuts in the ash pan of the fire for quite a while. When I was young I used to be in charge of roasting chestnuts on our open fire at home. Today I took a look in my Food for Free book to see what they had to say about chestnuts.

Make sure you slit all but one of them. Put them all on the hot ash or by the coals, when the one that hasn’t been slit explodes, the others are ready. ‘The explosion is fairly ferocious, scattering hot shrapnel over the room, so sit well back from the fire and make sure all the other nuts have been slit.’

I didn’t need to have one that exploded, I timed them perfectly for roasting, but sadly they don’t have that much flavour to them. Maybe they were just a little bit too small or early in the season.

7.7 miles, 4 locks, 1 wet morning, 1 wet early afternoon, 1 underwater obstruction, 2 supermarkets, 1 boots, 2 jabs, 2 packets spaghetti, 1 Frank in the green, 1 final check from the printers, 18 chestnuts.