Wednesday 16th April 2025

Thursday 10th April

Supported the local pub last night,  choosing a vegetarian lasagne.  Didn’t expect a heap of chips (laden with salt which were delicious and of course I couldn’t waste them!) to accompany it. The lasagne was fairly stodgy and I felt the after effects this morning.  Think I’ll do the cooking tonight.  It’s just we had had rather a long day by the time we moored up.  Cannot believe how busy this canal is compared to others we’ve experienced of late.  All the bridge widths are just a few inches wider than our boat so I have to really concentrate when passing through.  And they come thick and fast at times. Up ahead, coming towards us,   a boat was approaching the same bridge as us, closely followed by another boat. As I pulled to the side to let them through,  I could not believe a third boat was following close behind them! Our equivalent of Picadilly Circus! And this morning,  boats seem to be appearing frequently from both directions,  often travelling faster than tickover, with the result that mooring pins of moored boats can be dislodged. Fortnately we are on mooring rings – in the laundrette this morning I met a guy,  J,  who was telling me he looks after a friends boat in the week,  but they move and moor together at weekends (J is over 80 and he didn’t look a day over 70. He’s been on his boat for 28years.  He used to work for BT but at 50, when computers came in,  he was considered too old to retrain so they made him redundant and he retired). Recently, first his friend’s boat and then his,  were found straggling across the canal because the mooring pins had been dislodged by the wash from passing speedy boats.  I was so relieved when we moored up and a banner on the side of the towpath indicated a nearby laundrette.  Google had drawn a blank of such provision and I was fretting over our increasing mound of dirty clothes. We are feral enough with the shower inoperable at the moment.  By 0830 I was in the laundrette (passing a barbers,  coincidentally run by the wife of the man who owns the laundrette – I’ve booked R in for midday to spruce him up in advance of our Hot cross bun mission this weekend!) and J was already there using the extra large machine which I wanted for getting our duvet washed.  I settled down to wait patiently and was rewarded with not only helpful hints from J (he was adding soda crystals to his wash – apparently that helps sterilise the machine as you don’t know what has been in it previously.  It had never even occurred to me to worry about that!), but also amusing anecdotes. He told me about a continuous cruiser who makes his living from collecting used tyres.  He earns enough to drive a £210,000 porsche, and doesn’t seem concerned about leaving it alongside the towpath! You meet all types….

I love coincidences,  which I like to call God-instances. Our younger daughter sent us a pic yesterday of her and one of our lodgers who lived with us many years ago when studying journalism at the art college.  Only a couple of days ago R and I had been speaking of him and saying how we’d love to catch up with him again when we are next in London. He recognised our daughter – they both happen to work for the Bible Society. How small a world is that!

As I sit here in the peace of this beautiful village,  with only the occasional car disturbing the mood,  I am conscious of the prolific birdsong. Hence why I didn’t use the word silence.  It is anything but! It’s like a symphony because so many different birds are calling to one another.  Sadly, I can’t identify any of them and R isn’t here to tell me because he’s having his hair cut! I could of course use my Merlin app  (well worth downloading if you are into identifying bird song).  I’ve loved travelling along the Shropshire Union canal because it is so pretty with all the blossom bursting forth along the towpath. It looks idyllic although J said it had been closed recently due to fallen trees blocking the canal in stormy weather. The CRT have many demands on their time and resources,  so  it took weeks to clear. I’m hoping we’ll be OK as there’s not a breath of wind at the moment.  But it’s a reminder that we can only say we plan to get to a destination,  not that we will! A bit like life as we all think we have far more control than we actually do!

I’ve been feeding my sourdough starter and yesterday decided I really should move onto making some actual bread with it.  I googled cooking bread without an oven (we do have one but it’s full of baking pans and anyway I’m too thrifty to use the gas unless I have more than one thing to bake) and have just made my first loaf in a lidded saucepan. Admittedly, it’s a bit flat, but it looks like bread,  tastes like bread and at least it’s not ultraprocessed – trying to keep ultra processed foods to minimum is quite a challenge,  especially when R goes shopping!!

I’m really enjoying reconnecting with people via the blog,  so thank you when you respond.  Not only does it reassure me someone is out there, but it encourages me to keep writing,  which may or may not be a good thing! As we venture further from our comfort zone,  life becomes a bit more of a challenge for the everyday practicalities.  We’ve been assured there’s a CRT shower facility not far from here, so I’m hoping that’s the case.  Otherwise, I need to chase our friends along the cut who promised us a shower in return for a bag of hazelnuts.  S was extolling the deliciousness of the Aldi hazelnut chocolate bar which is more hazelnut than chocolate.  I suggested she made her own, so gave her some nuts.  She sent me a picture of what she had made and was going to save some for me, but she got carried away and now there’s none left!!

Post shower: well, there was a shower which ran cold for five minutes and then,  once it became hot,  it was either scalding or freezing,  with about 10 seconds of acceptable heat within the two extremes. It did,  therefore,  require patience and time to accomplish both hair and body wash,  but it was worth it.  For a short period of time, both Richard and I and all our clothing and bedlinen will be refreshingly clean! This is not the time for one of us to fall into the canal!!

There’s a wonderful chandlery here where I purchased a teapot that one can boil up the water directly on the gas cooker before adding the tea. In addition,  I was very tempted to buy a red and white polka dot kettle, but sense prevailed.  Its capacity is 3.5l and we rarely need that much hot water for just the two of us. (useful though for strip washing!)

Trundling along the canal we had a boat behind us that was getting ever closer,  so we pulled over to let it pass. It was a day boat hire and I remarked as they passed that they were travelling faster than us, so it was best they go ahead.  At which point they slowed down! It gave us time to admire the cutting that Thomas Telford had such trouble with.  The Shroppie was the last canal he designed before his death and was incredibly ambitious because it required so many deep cuttings and high embankments to cut through the Shropshire hillside.  This stretch slipped time and time again,  requiring the bank to be rebuilt on numerous occasions.  The problem was eventually solved by another engineer after Thomas’s death in 1834.

Monday 14th April

Not sure I want to see another Hot Cross bun! We’ve been moored up in Market Drayton over the weekend,  specifically to help with a Boaters Christian Fellowship outreach, which entailed chatting to people on the towpath, offering free hot cross buns and a couple of quizzes for children.  It’s been a very sociable time.  The forecast had been for rain, but it has held off,  although the temperature has definitely dropped. I’ve decided God must have a sense of humour – the boat moored next to ours is a pagan boat, trading crystals,  wizards, white witches and  fairies.  There was space for a boat between us, but for some reason the pagan boat moved up to be even closer! The lady told me how many people she meets who find this world a terrible place,  without hope. She talked to me about Pandora’s box being opened and all the evil spirits flying away and all that remained was hope but it seems she has little to hope for,  as she has no belief in anything after this life. Meanwhile, we’d just been to a church service where the vicar talked about hope in eternal life through Jesus’s death and resurrection.  Apparently recent statistics show that increasingly 18-24 yr olds are turning to spiritual answers for their sense of meaning.  Frankly,  looking at the state of the world,  the lack of integrity in many of our leaders and the growing injustices and increased suffering,  is it any wonder? Where else can they find hope in a world that appears chaotic,  scary and lacking any long term stability. It seems to me that it has been ever thus – in times of crisis, people turn to something bigger than themselves.

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