On up through Stoke on Trent

Barlaston was a good place to moor. Pleasing to the eye, peaceful to the ear. Apart, that is, from the nearby railway. Though Grace and I have realized recently that we generally filter out railway noise these days, and don't really notice it at all.

We were expecting today to be a long one, so we started out towards Stoke on Trent a bit earlier than usual.

I'll mention the weather today, because it was quite significant. The weather forecast first thing was a bit indecisive. It might pour with rain. It might not. Maybe. We were not going to be deterred, however, so we took the risk. And got a bit wet, to say the least. This was solely because of three or four cats, dogs and buckets episodes, none of which lasted longer than fifteen minutes. But at that order of magnitude, that was quite enough!

At Trentham Lock, 12 foot seep, so it was going to be a slow one, we found ourselves at the back of a queue of four other boats waiting to go up. Another joined behind us shortly afterwards. We hadn't queued at a lock for ages!

Two of the boats were folk on holiday and understandably slow due to lack of experience. One of the crew from the craft immediately in front of us, chosen to operate the locks, had never done it before, nor had it explained to her. I was happy to assist.

Incidentally, neither Trentham Lock, nor any others today apart from that at the top of the Trent Flight, had anti-vandal locks fitted to the paddle mechanisms. I was misinformed yesterday.

After Trentham, we came up behind this holiday boat at each successive lock, and another came up fast behind us, so I got to chat with the crews quite a lot. The main man from this second boat was in his late 40s, I guess, and he'd been on a canal holiday most years since 1977. His youngest daughter was with him, his sister and brother-in-law, and his mum. His wife and eldest daughter had stayed at home. They do very year. They don't like canal holidays.

Welcome to Stoke on Trent!

These were deep locks, still. Trentham is 12 foot deep. Most were gentle as they were filled, but the last one, taking advantage of how we were accustomed to being slow and kind, took us all by surprise. It caught Kantara in a strong current and threw her at the top gates. Grace gave the poor engine full reverse throttle, and I dropped a top gate paddle. There was rather more than a tickle between Kantara's prow and the gates, but no harm was done. Except to Grace's nerves!

Relics of former potteries...

Some of the locks...

Etruria Lock

The hire boat in front of has had been having its own problems. While they'd been in Etruria Lock, waiting for it to fill, there came cries for help. Neither their crew at the gates nor the helmsman Dad seemed to hear the shouting. If it's not one of their party, I thought, perhaps it's Grace. She was hidden from my view. I ran to the bridge across the bottom of the lock (photo above) and looked down. Much to my relief, all was well with her, so I hurried back to the lockside, to see Dad scurrying down into his boat.

It transpired that the elderly mother had fallen and hit her head, which was bleeding profusely. His wife got called in to help, and I sent the other woman to go with her, leaving me to deal with the gates. After some wait, Dad drove the boat out and moored it immediately. We brought Kantara up, and continued past the troubled holiday party.

It was very definitely lunch time now, and we needed somewhere to moor. A fellow boater had earlier recommended to me a good mooring alongside Westport Park, so this is where we stopped for lunch. And remained there until the morning.

The holiday family arrived some hours later, and moored not far from us, but when I walked past the boat in the evening, the windows were curtained, and the people had gone. What a sad, sudden ending to their holiday.

Westport Lake, next to our mooring.

After a short stay at Stone...

It's not because we're superstitious, it's just that I'm forgetful at times, but I failed to record the other day that Grace and I both had dreams on the same night, that Kantara was sinking. Different circumstances, same outcome. Weird!

Our Stone mooring

We were in no great hurry to leave Stone this morning. We'd spent the day here yesterday. The morning weather had been rather off-putting, and both of us had things to do for which a day's pause was useful.

Early yesterday evening, a hire boat had come down the lock ahead of us and moored rather clumsily at the white bollards, which are reserved for boats waiting to ascend the lock. I didn't say anything. It didn't seem likely at this time of day that they'd present much of a problem where they were. It was not till this morning that I learned that they'd been pretty much forced to moor there, in fact. Their throttle had jammed open in slow, forward gear, and they could neither go faster nor stop. Hence the clumsy arrival! They stayed the night, and someone from the hire company arrived at about 11:00 to fix it.

We set off at about that time, up the remaining three of the Stone Locks, followed shortly by the four Meaford Locks. Both flights are of deep locks - around 10 feet – and they fill and empty rather slowly. Add to that quite a volume of traffic in both directions, and it resulted in slow forward progress. Not that we minded. I got to meet several people, and have relatively long chats with them. The lady from NB Sailor, with whom we leap-frogged a bit over the course of the day, gave me some useful advice; not to moor at Trentham Lock today as we had intended. It's fairly close to the sprawl of Stoke on Trent, and the gates there are fitted with vandal-proof... er... no, it's "water-saving" locks which require special keys. “Water-saving locks”! They only save water because the local vandals are unable to open the paddles because of them! Is that Political Correctness, not to use the word “vandal”? Anyway, the necessity of fitting the locks suggested to us that perhaps we don't want to moor there. The Sailor lady recommended Barlaston instead, a mile below Trentham.

This lady told me she's over eighty. She was an inspiration! She was slim, fit and strong, fully able to manage the lock we were at. Her mind was sharp, too. I just hope I can be the same when I'm her age. I'd love still to be on the canals then, and still managing the locks, and engaging in witty repartee with other boaters. She'll be on my mind as my years roll on!

We had lunch just below Meaford Locks before ascending this flight.

Though most of today's locks filled gently, just a few of them were very violent, throwing up bath-suds around Kantara, and forcing Grace to rev the engine quite hard to stop the boat from rushing into either set of gates.

I had a very strange experience at Meaford Road Bridge. I'd just assisted the single-handed skipper of a 25 foot boat as he opened the top gate and drove out. Looking ahead, he could see that there was a boat in the next lock, on its way down. They were just about to open the bottom gate paddles. The little boat drove slowly towards them as I tried to close the top gate behind him. But this gate was very heavy. Stiff. And at about the half-closed point, it refused to close any further. I'm pulling at it with all my might, but nothing's happening.

Suddenly, I heard a shout from the man in the little boat, then a loud rush of water in the side sluices, which carry overflow from the top of the lock to the bottom. My stubborn gate that had been going nowhere just a few seconds before slammed closed, and the beam I was pulling on slammed me, knocking me several feet backwards. I was unhurt, but quite shocked by what had happened. I'd never experienced anything like it before. Meeting the man in the little boat again later, I heard from him how he'd felt his boat ride over a wave just before it hit my gate. Neither of us had a clue what had caused it. The same thing didn't occur when I was at that lock, opening those paddles. Very strange!

Taking the advice of the Sailor lady, we moored not long after that, at a very pleasant and sunny Barlaston, mooring of a good number of other boats.

I've been in Twitter conversations with John of NB Samsara, who is just a matter of a few hours ahead of us on the same journey to Liverpool, and David on a three-week holiday on NB Elbereth heading towards us, so we're keeping a look-out for them both. It's always good to see in the flesh people we've only ever known by name and/or boat name.

David's read my book.

I can forgive the typo, in view of the accolade!