On to Willington

John Smith, Coal Merchant of Melbourne (01332 862744), delivered as promised on Thursday morning, so we’ve now a roof full of Excel Smokeless. That should do us for a while. Still on the lookout for wood, though.

After the delivery we moved to the water point and filled up, then another 100 yards or so to grassy towpath. Where we were was good for the delivery, the truck was able to pull right alongside on the tarmacced access road, but not so good for Meg’s late evening pee.

Today we’ve moved on up to Willington. Both loo tanks needed emptying, and we needed a bit of shopping.

It’s been cool but dry. We seemed to have avoided the odd shower that was supposed to be knocking about, but the sky has stayed pretty grey. If it stays as cool as this I’ll seriously have to consider packing my shorts away!

We had a gentle cruise, not much above tick-over, to Stenson Lock. This is the last of the broad locks going up to Stoke, from here we’re back onto narrow locks, the first being at Burton.

In Stenson Lock

They’ve been a few boats about, but no-one to share with when we arrived here. As the navigation climbs up from Shardlow these broad locks have been getting steadily deeper. At 12 foot something this is quite a daunting chamber, especially for first time hirers.
A quick calculation - this lock uses about 90,000 gallons of water at a time....

The rebuilt Bridge 20, with NB Remindme just coming through.

This is the bridge that was damaged when a trailer full of “organic fertiliser” (cow s**t) went through the parapet and deposited it’s load in the canal.

Another gentle 40 minutes saw us coming into Willington.

A brave show of Crisanthymums on the allotments.
We emptied the loos, then had to turn around to go back the way we’d come to get a mooring spot. This is always a busy spot, but with over half of the piling now given over to winter moorings there are only about six spaces for visitors left on the hard edge. All of these were occupied, unlike the length for winter moorings. There is just one boat on there…

I see that the ticket prices for the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics have been announced. It’s an odd coincidence that the cost per seat has been calculated to be £2012. Or maybe there wasn’t a lot of calculation involved…..
With 80,000 seats available in the main stadium, even at 75% capacity the £120m raised will go someway to paying the £537m cost of the structure.

Locks 1, miles 5