Bartimaeus

We enjoyed our bike ride in the sunshine, with slap up lunch. We have been aware of many canal routes closing due to water shortages, affecting our medium term plans. It was a surprise after lunch to find our way blocked by water, but it was easily avoided. I say easily, but I wasn't the one having to push the bike on the  diversion when we had to change from a wide path to a tiny path.

Our mooring was excellent for visiting water birds. Goslings came first. We have seen more on the fields than the water. They were in a crèche with three adults and ten goslings. 

A swan and ducklings shot over to us, when we opened the hatch. The swan seemed to be trying to keep the ducklings away but wasn't interested in eating anything offered itself.

We set off went through the Adderley locks. There seems to be plenty of gushing water around here, making it hard to drive in without touching the sides. The flight was quite busy and though we started behind a boat with the locks against us, we soon met others coming down. We changed places with a few boats going the other way and I had friendly chats with the other crews. Another hire group were having to change their holiday plan with the closures ahead taking out their planned trip. I bade them an enjoyable time nevertheless.

We saw some unusual cows. I don't know what breed they are but some had very hefty haunches. Cows are often quite boney hipped. We got a good look as they were right at the waterside.

As we were looking for a place to stop for lunch I thought the place Shane was suggesting was the wrong side of the canal but he had correctly surmised that the bridge was a turnover one where the towpath changes sides. It wasn't as elegant as some we have seen but it was indeed a place to change over.

As we passed one boat, the driver seemed a bit more cautious about his driving than many. He had met us where there were overhanging trees and also a trunk in the water. We saw it had been sawn off but also a marker was sticking up so one could see it was there. Possibly it is submerged when there are higher water levels and it lets people know to avoid it.

After lunch we continued to Market Drayton. We have been here before. We remembered going to a cafe and a shop that sold refills. When we got into the town, the cafe was closed and not trading, awaiting new people to start a business. We found a refillery and wholefood shop but it was clearly being run by someone else and had been refurbished completely, or may even be in a different place on the same street. We paid it a visit and a more successful one than last time.

I had remembered some timbered buildings. I didn't remember much detail. An added observation was that I had recently bought Salopian beer, which introduced troduced me to the new word Salopian, which is an old word for 'from Shropshire', so that now made the pub name make sense. It looked pretty old.

Another old building, The Crown pub, has a plaque on it saying it had survived a fire in 1651, despite a thatched roof. It no longer has a thatched roof, perhaps that was a wise change. 

Given that it was clearly a place to go to since Medieval times, I was surprised that the covered market had a 19th century date on it.

Shane had found a shop to try and get a catch for the sliding hatch at the back door. It has lately been sliding back and forth as we are going along and this can catch someone out being in a different place from a previous time or it might move while one is expecting to be able to steady oneself on it. He chose a magnet catch and then on our way out I saw some shoes on sale. This wasn't a shoe shop but they looked comfortable and a pair of trainers had recently gone through in the toe. I asked if I could try them on and got two pairs and managed to try them out, though it was an odd place to be trying on shoes and pacing as there were no mirrors and more importantly no seats so I had to do all the changes balanced on one leg.

Once we were back Shane got out the electric multi tool and worked outside with a plunge saw attachment.

The hatch seems to be staying in place better now, hopefully that isn't just because the balance is shifted with a newly filled water tank.

We had ended up under the trees, as Market Drayton was busy and had some very tight mooring restrictions including places you could only moor at night and not during the day. In the morning Shane decided to check if an open space was now available and found it was, so he reversed back through the bridge to a different mooring. Someone from a boat at the fuel service jetty asked if we wanted to go there. We were mooring just where they had been and they were considering going back, but decided just to move on rather than squeeze back in after filling their tank.

Shane noticed through the window some familiar lettering on the stern of a boat in the wharf opposite. It was, as he'd suspected, another Ortomarine boat. We wouldn't have noticed if we hadn't changed our mooring. It is the most recent build launched by them. The electric boats like to show off that they are green.