Real Boaters (Stage 2)

It's been a while coming, but last night was our first away from the security (aka mains lead and jetty tap) of the marina. The sun shone as we made our way to Sandon Lock – the furthest we'd come on our previous days out. This was decision point, as our canal guide doesn't show Aston Marina. We thought that, once past the winding hole at Sandon, there'd be no opportunity to turn until Stone, and by then it would be too late to get back to Great Haywood. So up we came to Stone, and found the last mooring in the town centre just above the bottom lock.

Why was this such a big deal? Because when I'd tried to start to start the engine in the morning, there was nary a peep from the starter motor, and it tripped one of the circuit breakers. Engineering Jon came over to see, and nonchalantly said it had done this on and off for the last three years. That sounded like trouble, but Jon thought it was probably just a dud battery. He put in another he happened to have, and suggested we go and try it. Then he said he'd come and fetch us if we got stranded!

So far, so good. We met some more helpful people along the way, including Gina and Andrew on Braidbar boat La Suvera, who shared a bit of their own experience of extended cruising. The locks are getting less claustrophobic. We've had a very peaceful night at Stone. And the engine started every time it needed to.

Bones!

The stookie came off last week and an X-ray confirmed the bone had healed up, albeit slightly resetting the angle between arm and hand. What I hadn't expected was the stiffness, soreness and weakness in my wrist and forearm, from five weeks of inactivity. Exercises will sort all this out in time, but for the moment the locker covers for the Erin Mae have to wait – marine ply and power tools are not yet a safe combination.

Still, we decided to come up to the boat today, and after a delayed start found ourselves passing Oxford around 4. "What about a cuppa at Annie's tea rooms?" met with my best beloved's approval. You can't read boating blogs for long without getting to know about Annie's, and we had a vague idea how to find it, though Thrupp doesn't actually show up on the map we keep in the car. Followed our noses, asked an estate agent, and there it was, looking its best in the afternoon sun. Suitably refreshed, we got up to go, and thought we recognised the dog sitting by the bench outside. Boots the dog, and Bones the owner, also recognisable from the general self-description on her blog, the caricature that heads her column in Canal Boat, and the serious piece of two-wheeled machinery 10 yards away. So we hesitatingly introduced ourselves, and had a good natter for 10 minutes or so. Her blog was one of the first we began to read when first we found the on-line boaters, and it was great to say hello. Thanks, Bones!

Staffordshire oatcakes

We first saw them on top of the deli counter at the Spar in Great Haywood. This week we decided to give them a go. The woman behind the counter told us how to do it – a bit of ham and cheese inside, roll them up and pop them in the microwave for a couple of minutes. They were fabulous, reminiscent of the savoury buckwheat crêpes you get in France. Quite different to what I'd thought of up to now as an oatcake.

In the shop down the road we came across a packet of oatcakes that looked similar but which were labelled as Derbyshire oatcakes. Wikipedia says these are a similar recipe but usually a bit larger and thicker. Perhaps those Dales walkers need greater sustenance.

Salt and Sandon

The Hollybush at Salt does a wonderful venison casserole, but they'd run out by 1 p.m., so we both had guinea fowl for Sunday lunch. Yummy! Then we set out to walk it off. I've been experimenting with the Garmin Dakota 20 given to me at retirement – plotting a route on the computer, and then using the Garmin to follow it. Having the OS map on the device is great, and it's interesting to work with the differences from using a paper version.

The route we'd planned took us from Salt, over the Trent and Mersey and the A51 and through the Sandon estate. Woodland, grassland, the odd monument, a 12th century church and a long stretch of towpath before we got back to the pub. My best beloved's knee reports feeling ready for a 24 hour rest, but OK apart from that.

The Hollybush Inn, Salt

The helmsman and the fishermen seemed to be playing chicken. We stayed to watch – and they did get their rods up just in time.

This entrance to the Sandon estate looks more inviting than the main one down the road.

Pisa it is not, but Pitt's column really does seem to be off the vertical.

Trentham Tower. Folly it may be, but it must have offered some fabulous views when new. Now it is a bit of an eyesore, with broken stone and plasterwork.

All Saints, Sandon, unfortunately locked.

Tixall Wide again

Saturday morning we moved Erin Mae to the service jetty for a pump-out, and decided on the spur of the moment to see how my wrist would respond to slightly longer on the tiller. So off we went on our favourite day-trip, a gentle half-hour down to Tixall Wide. The wrist was mostly OK, the day was mostly fine, and we had a great chill-out. Is this retirement, holiday or convalescence? Not sure, but it's what the doctor ordered!

Cannock Chase

With hospital appointments done and dusted, we came up to the Erin Mae just in time to miss the appalling storm that soaked the Bournemouth area. Can't do the jobs I had planned, because it's amazing how the simplest of pactical tasks seems to put stress on a wrist fracture. But it's good to be here in our normal holiday month.

So we went for a walk on Friday, giving my best beloved's knee its first real work out in the wild. It did very well – three and a half miles of heathland with a few mild ups and downs. Cannock Chase seemed pretty empty at first, though some walkers and cyclists appeared later on. We had a brilliant time.

Fields of heather across the Chase

Not much water in the Sherbrook valley, apart from this puddle where we had lunch. The construction looks like a piece of aqueduct made from concrete blocks, but what it was doing here was not at all clear.

The workout

The "Glacier Boulder" apparently consists of a type of rock found in Scotland, and is therefore supposed to have been deposited here during the last Ice Age.

Fracture clinic

It seems that fracture clinics, at least on the first visit, are normally for those who need a stookie, rather than those who already have one. So I had to explain more than once how I came to be taking up NHS time when my wrist was already adorned with a plaster wrapping in a fetching shade of blue. But they were very nice, confirmed that I should not be driving, showed us that the fracture was rather more extensive than we had thought at first, and fixed up the next appointment for 6th September. That will be six and a half weeks since I carelessly fell into the water, and five weeks and one day for that part of my anatomy to remain unwashed. I find extremely unconvincing the assurance from my best beloved that I'm the only one likely to be aware of the whiff developing under the plaster.

Since we had to make this trip to Lymington we extended it to Southampton, partly to buy some stuff from Ikea for the Erin Mae, and partly to take my MacBook to the Apple Store's fracture clinic genius bar. The edge of the wrist support had worn to the point of breaking away, and a colleague had suggested that Apple would do something about it. Which they did – a new keyboard and surround for free, even though the laptop was nearly four years old and well out of warranty. "No problem at all, sir, provided I've got one in stock." Service, this time, that smells of roses.