Well, we are one week back in to our journey around the UK on Daisy Duke! I wrote this blog last night, whilst sitting on the sofa in front of a hot stove, having had a delicious hot tea of sausage, mash, veg and onion gravy. Due to the weather though, Ive not been able to upload it until this morning! It’s funny how the darkness and cloud affect these things.
We set off from the marina at Kings Bromley on Friday of last week and travelled west along the Trent and Mersey Canal, before turning south onto the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal just after Rugeley and then onto the Shropshire Canal at Wolverhampton where we proceed to go North towards Chester.
The Shropshire canal is commonly referred to as the ‘Shroppie’ and we can certainly see why it is a favourite amongst the single boaters. The locks are very few and far between and the scenery is just beautiful.
The weather has been varied – we have had ice on the inside of the windows, we have seen blazing sun and today, we have seen plenty of rain! Our coats are currently hanging up in front of the stove to dry off.
At one point today, I had to take over the steering from Paul whilst he tried to put the pram cover up to give us some protection from the rain and I got distracted by trying to keep my mobile phone dry and crashed Daisy into the side of the canal. Paul wasn’t very happy at all and my confidence took a bit of a battering. Fortunately though, there wasn’t too much damage (I don’t think) and it goes to show how quickly things can go wrong!
On a positive though, after nearly a year of trying, I got a passing train to honk its horn!!! It was an extra special one as well because there was another train coming the opposite way which honked as well! It’s definately a skill as you have to do the honk signal at precisely the right moment when the driver has a clear view of the boat and enough time to act. Paul, being much taller, is often far more successful 🤣
All being well, we should arrive in Market Drayton at some point tomorrow and we plan to stay there for the weekend so that Paul can watch the rugby. It will also give me the opportunity to visit a laundrette and to do a big food shop as we are almost out of provisions.
We are still very much enjoying ourselves and it is nice to see other boaters whilst out and about. We do of course miss our family and friends though.
Spring is very much in the air and we have seen plenty of snowdrops on our travels and also some brave daffodils. Today was very exciting as we had a heron fly alongside us for a stretch of the canal and also a kingfisher. Usually, kingfishers are very hard to spot and you only usually see a flash of blue as they fly past but today, we were actually able to capture one sitting on a branch watching us go by.
Zak had a very close shave on Wednesday. Paul took him out for a morning walk while I did some work and, we don’t know exactly what happened, but when Paul shouted Zak he didn’t come. Paul then retraced his steps and saw Zak swimming in the canal. In his panic, Zak was swimming to the opposite side of the canal which Paul couldn’t get to and so Paul had started to take his clothes off as he was actually going to go in after him. A boat was coming in the opposite direction and he was shouting to Paul to stop – maybe he thought Paul was going to throw himself in 😝 Fortunately though the commotion caused Zak to turn round and swim back to Paul who was then able to drag him out of the canal. We can only imagine that he chased another animal into the canal. Needless to say, he has been rather subdued today and he is keeping away from the water!
We also had a meet up with one of my old work colleagues, Matthew Kelly, whilst we were in Wolverhampton and he took us to a pub that he knew sold the type of ales that Paul really likes. It turned into a bit of a session and both Paul and I suffered a bit the next day (well I certainly did).
We hope that everybody is keeping well and we will be in touch with another update next week.
Lots of love , Jo, Paul, Zak & Daisy xx
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