Approval

Last night's food at the Mucky Duck was carefully delivered by our attentive teenage waiter, who also went on little errands for us: what was the nature of the Thursday night folk sessions? please could we have more custard with our sticky toffee pudding; please could we have some spoons to eat the pudding with.

The two pies (for £15) were, I suppose, typical pub food. Quite tasty (we cheerfully cleared our plates), rather long on carbohydrate but rather short on protein. When you added in the pudding, we ate more simple carbohydrate in an hour that we would normally imbibe in a week! But if you're going out for a meal, you've got to at least consider having a pudding. It wasn't home-made (neither were the pies) but it wasn't bad.

Today's target was to replenish the larder in Rugeley, so we'd become comestibly self-sufficient once more. That was accomplished, courtesy of Morrisons and the fruit & veg shop opposite, but we decided not to remain on the very convenient visitor mooring in the middle of town. We'd never stayed overnight by the aqueduct where the T&M crosses the River Trent, and thought we would do so. Tomorrow is threatening lots of rain, so if we hole up here it should be more pleasant than in town.

At least, so we thought until our mooring neighbour came to warn us that this spot is sometimes prone to teenagers out for a laugh coming and jumping on and off the gunnel. Hopefully the promised rain will keep them away. If not, it transpires that our neighbour is in the process of making a claymore – a traditional two-handed Scottish sword. If he gets that out on the towpath, I doubt our little boating community will have any trouble!

Though I don't think I should really approve.