Tuesday 29 October 2013

Cruising in the sun - not the rain

Friday 25th October to Monday 28th October 2013

Our passage into Stoke had been governed by the weather predictions and knowing that we would therefore be in Stoke by Thursday we had arranged for appointments at Specsavers to have our eyes tested and undoubtedly purchase new glasses for each of us.
And so it came to pass that this is exactly what happened – 2 new pairs for me and only 1 for Diane (of course she is much younger than me and only needs a slight change of prescription).

We had earlier in the day – on our walk into the town centre – seen that The Regent Theatre would soon have a short season (1 week) of the musical Cats.
As neither of us had seen this we decided to enquire about both prices and available seats. We have tickets for the Tuesday evening performance.

Our 48 hours at the junction was up on Saturday morning, so after a pumpout and topping up the water tank we were off, but not very far at all. We moored up just before the marina -  Diane had rung Howard (aka Malcolm) and we were in luck, he was on the boat in the marina so we took the chance to pop in for a cuppa and catch up with him (very sorry that Janet was in London for the day, but we will see her next time).
He has made a number of changes inside the boat and all looks very good – got rid of the storage of stuff not needed and opened up the saloon a bit.
As is usual we discussed next years cruising schedule and Howard was able to give us some of his vast knowledge about where we are heading – and at the same time giving Diane a bit of a scare about the “dangers” to be encountered – all light hearted fun.
It also appears that our paths will cross so that will be a win for the proposed schedule.

After that it was off to the lake (Westport Lake) for a couple of days; we past by it, headed towards Harecastle tunnel and winded before coming back and mooring up.

Again the weather has us waiting to see when we will be able to head off back into “central” Stoke for the theatre and for a visit to the Wedgwood factory outlet.

We made the bit of a dash during a sunny period and moored up outside the Toby Carvery – not long after we were safely inside the rain came again – so so lucky in our reading of the weather.

8 Miles

Totals: 2201 Miles, 1644 Locks, 74 Tunnels, 32 Lift Bridges, 145 Swing Bridges

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