Market Drayton to Goldstone Wharf 27th April 2022

Up fairly early to go to the market. Had a quiet night with only a little noise from the further road bridge.

Emptied the rubbish and had a quick chat with the guy cleaning the toilet block. Same guy who does Nantwich. Currently works for Fountains but about to be transferred to the company that won the new CRT contract (Dovetail) who sound to be a bit more professional. Hope so as this guy takes a real pride in his work. 

Short walk into town to the market. Not as big as expected but we managed to get a new mop and scrubbing brush for the boat. Looked in a few charity shops and got a book. 

Picked up a few groceries at the small Asda. The location of the festival we are heading to is remote so we need to be well stocked to dilute the festival food. 

Got back to the boat about 11:00 and met up with the other IWA couple who are taking their boat to the festival. They were having a bit of a medical crisis and were unsure whether they would need to turn around and go home. So we took various banners etc for the IWA stand onto our boat just in case. We saw them again in the evening so it looks like the crisis was resolved. 

About 13:00 we set off to make our way through five Tyrley locks which are the last before Norbury Junction. Carried on through Woodseaves Cutting. Lots of remains of fallen trees presumably brought down by the series of storms earlier in the year. Some of the canal seemed quite shallow. We had to squeeze past an oncoming boat in the narrow section. 

Arrived at Goldstone Wharf about 15:30 and moored up with one ring and one pair of pins to make sure we didn't leave a git gap. Another boat did later take the space we had left so the extra effort mooring was justified. 

Had a bit of a rest before both having showers to take advantage of the hot water from the cruise. 

Then quiet evening reading and dinner of chilli and rice. Andrew has cracked open the mini-keg of Doom Bar he got for his birthday so now the race is on to drink it before it goes off. And Alison can't help because it's not gluten free... 

We can have a bit of a lie in tomorrow morning as Norbury Junction is only about 3 hours away and the moorings only become available from early afternoon. We will be breasted up with another boat during the festival and happened to meet them in one of the charity shops earlier today. 

They won't be arriving till some time on Friday so we will need to shuffle across when they arrive as they will be trading selling jigsaw puzzles to raise money for a canal restoration project in Stafford.