Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Meeting of the planning committee

On the banks of the Trent & Mersey canal, just outside Sandon, there was a meeting of t'planning committee. Very few decisions were made, but alcohol was consumed, Muttley had a cuddle and a nice family on a hire boat were rescued from the consequences of trying to wind a 70ft boat with the blunt end where the pointy bit should have been. Altogether a reasonable outcome by our PC meeting standards - however, the unusual thing about it was that Joe attended instead of his apologies (bribed with the promise of alcohol I suspect)!



As always, Daisy put in her 4 penn'orth & was the only one that made any sense - she suggested that we stop in Stone for a quick look round & then moor in the countryside above the town.
En route to Stone, Floyd rolled (& rolled & rolled) in a disgustingly stinky fish. The battle to keep our distance from (& definitely upwind of) him resulted in unseemly scrabbling - see how Baxter & Muttley are trying to disown him and Fletcher has that, "why me?" expression & not a human in sight.
We tried losing him but, in the end, Lesley hosed him down with shampoo.

Stone was so lovely that we stayed overnight (Daisy was over ruled & shut in-that went down well; not). The town really encourages visitors & embraces it's canal heritage. There was a lovely plaque saying how the celebrations were so great when the first canal boats reached the town that, "there were muchly firings of cannons" and that 2 locks and a bridge were so badly damaged that the boats were unable to leave - sounds like my kind of a party.




The old boatyards and brewery buildings as you leave the town to the North.



We tried to give little Muttley to these guys, but we think they were deaf or something.

Anyway, time to start walking back from Barlaston towards Stone to find NB Caxton. We couldn't get the lazy b's out of bed this a.m., so we left without them - I expect Lesley will come up with some excuse.
I really lost my rag with people at locks this morning - lock manners are disappearing (& I was hungry!).








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