A New Home for Thomazina

Taking the boat from Saul Marina to our new home in Gnosall

an adventure in itself

Setting out, at Maiden butchers,
Brewood from the canal, 
Stretton Aqueduct (over Watling Street)

Saturday 31st October

As forecast, when we woke up the winds were so strong that waves were being blown along the canal. Heavy, squally showers accompanied the rain so we sat it out until the rain stopped about 2pm. The wind seemed strong, blowing across from the field opposite, and we thought that we would have trouble getting off the moorings, but it was surprisingly easy. We pottered up to the visitor moorings at Brewood, (pronounced Brood), all of one and a half miles, and found a space that was not underneath too many overhanging trees. 

 Avenue Bridge

Just before Brewood we went under the fancy ballustraded Avenue Bridge, an 'accommodation bridge' which leads to Chillington Hall.

Brewood scarecrows

Brewood has an excellent cake shop and butcher, and we knew that we were too late for cakes, but Maidens were still open and we were just in time to get one of their splendid pork pies and some special-price, extra thick, rump steak for tomorrow's dinner. 

A lot of the Brewood houses had displayed halloween scarecrows, some of them really inventive. There was even a recording of peals of church bells drifting through the window behind the 'bellringer'. When we got back to the boat the sun was still shining, albeit a little weak, so we decided to cruise for another hour or so, and tied up for the night just before Wheaton Aston.

Sunday 1st November

We seemed to have missed the heavy rain we were expecting while we were still asleep, so we put sausages in the oven to cook for breakfast and we set out. We were only about five minutes from the lock at Wheaton Aston, which is the only lock for miles on this stretch of the Shroppie — seventeen miles of lock-free cruising might be useful when we get older. 

Herons taking flight

The autumn colours have been beautiful, but they had fallen thick and fast, and there was such a carpet of them mixed with small branches that we struggled to get into the lock, and struggled even harder to get out. A C&RT chap arrived to clear some of them just as we were leaving, and he said there would be about five weeks of it and then it would suddenly clear. He had a very technical method for clearing the lock — open the bottom gates, open the top paddles, then let the pouring water flush it all through!

Wheaton Aston Lock, carpets of leaves, 
former Cadbury depot

We stopped at the services to use empty elsan and rubbish and to fill up with water, then set off again. John made us a breakfast sandwich using the spelt loaf he made a couple of days ago — the first time he'd made bread on the boat for over a year, and it's delicious.

A little further on our left we saw a house that I had always coveted, a lovely conversion of a former Cadbury's wharf house. John used to say "if we win the lotto" and I used to reply "ah, it's a bit too far from home, too far north" — and here we are now. We've moved lock, stock and boat to Gnosall, which is a couple of miles further along from this house. 

Cowley Tunnel was originally intended to be much longer, but it was opened out early on in its construction (1831), because of dangerous faults in the rock, which reduced its length to the 81 yards it is now.

We arrived at our new home, Thomazina's new mooring, just after 11.30am. It felt strange to be tying up there, but it was great to just load everything over the side of the boat and straight through the garden gate. And every time I think I've forgotten something, I only have to walk down the garden. 

Just in time for lockdown too …

At the new mooring, flying the Venetian flag, the garden gate, Thomazina moored outside the garden

The journey ~ Saul Marina and Gnosall are marked with purple circles