Catch Up

It’s been quite a while sine the last blog so time for a catch up.

Going back to when we were in Fazeley a few weeks ago, we met up with Bob and June nb Autumn Myst and had an enjoyable evening catching up over a bottle of wine and then again the following morning over coffee. Dudley had his first experience of another dog, Bob and June’s latest Guide Dog puppy Ecco who is a nine month old black lab (well 10 months old now!!). Ecco was very patient and put up with Dudley springing around her trying to play. Bob took some lovely photos of them together, here’s a link to them here.

Bob and June

Ecco and Dudley

On the Monday Dudley had his second vaccination jab and micro chip, his was very brave and didn’t make a fuss at all, even though there was quite a bit of blood from the micro chip. On Tuesday we made our way to Alvecote, we had a space booked for the floating market at Alvecote Marina with the bonus of electric hook up, so I managed to get quite a few wash loads done.

The market started on the Friday and as it was a ‘normal’ day it was fairly quite, Saturday rain stopped play early and Sunday was very windy, still not bad sales wise. Bank Holiday Monday the weather was better and people were out in force, it was a very successful day for us so well worth going. In the evening we headed over to the Samuel Barlow pub where we met up with a couple of the other traders and kept poor Matthew there until after midnight.

Alvecote Floating Market

The Samuel Barlow

We left in a few days before leaving as the weather was horrid, wet and really windy, when we finally left on Wednesday we only went back to Fazeley for a couple of days. We got a takeaway from Kudos, the Indian restaurant we have often been to when passing through, but with Dudley now and as he’s not been on his own we had  take away instead, which was excellent and James even got a free bottle of beer.

After Fazeley it was onto Fradley and right turn onto the Trent and Mersey Canal. We had intended stopping at the visitor moorings between the locks, but unfortunately they were full as it was quite late in the day by the time we arrived. We carried on down through Hunt Lock and then Common Lock stopping on a nice straight grassy section which Dudley loved as he could run around off the lead.

On Friday we left Fradley behind and dropped down through Alrewas onto the river section, there was hardly any flow and the level just reached the green section on the board so all was well. We continued on past the really noisy stretch which runs adjacent to the busy A38 and stopped at Branston Water Park. Just a little way down the canal there is a house that was selling rhubarb at its back gate which backs onto the canal, so we had a few sticks and made crumble. We had a very short stroll through the water park, but hopefully will stop here again on the way back.

Saturday we headed through Burton-upon-Trent to Willington, we managed to squeeze onto a mooring just after the pub. Sunday we set up shop to and made a few sales so it was certainly worth doing. On Monday we headed off back to Burton-upon-Trent ready for the Roving Canal Traders Floating Market over the Whitsun Bank Holiday Weekend.

30 Miles and 16 locks

Total 192 Miles and 173 Locks