Woke up to a beautiful morning - this is what boating is about
Took the bus into Stafford yesterday. Very good value breakfast in the Co-op cafe - £2.25 for 5 items and including tea or coffee - the very healthy fried bread was excellent. Went to B&Q and Maplins looking for the foldable aerial which Andrew & Michele have but no luck. Then tried to find a kettle to replace the one I ruined when it boiled dry. Finally found one in Argos.
Stafford is a very nice town with some lovely buildings
Rather spoiled by the shop façades.
Lovely indoor market and I bought some steak at the butchers and a roasting tin (more of that later), another fitted sheet (thanks for the suggestion, Margaret, makes life much easier), then Sainsburys to stock up and take advantage of their special offers on whisky and lots of other goodies. Shopping trolley was essential - so glad I bought one.
I have not walked so far for many years so we required some nourishment when we got back to Gnosall.
The Navigation pub.
Decided it was far too far to walk back to the boat for my steak (must be 200 yards) so very nice fish and chips washed down by some excellent ale.
More boats and people arriving and the banter is getting going
Now to the roasting tin. My stove has not been keeping the boat warm enough and every time I rake it out hot coals fall out and have already made several burns in my new carpet. With Andrew's help we worked out that it was probably a combination of poor coal (Taybrite) and not enough air getting in under the coal as the vents were getting blocked by ash. Solution - put the roasting tin in front of the fire and rake away to my heart's content - the coals fall into the tin and do no damage. Andrew kindly gave me some Excel to try and it is pumping out the heat. Problem solved, thanks Andrew. And the kettle is boiling on the stove.
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