Wednesday 10 August 2016

M Goes Home for Two Nights.

Monday 8th to Wednesday 10th August, 2016 in Stoke and then Kidsgrove.
Our pleasant mooring between the cemetary and the two bottle kilns was as quiet as ever.
M had to go home on Monday to babysit tomorrow so that Elly and Matt can go to the wedding of one of their best friends. We walked the half mile or so back to Stoke-on-Trent Railway Station, where R waved M off on the train. M says that R looks far too happy - and will no doubt get up to all kinds of mischief while she is away (Moi? Replies R). (Yes! says M - that cheerful smile no doubt means "Girls! Wine! Late nights! General carousing! Hooray"!!)
R took MM up through the three Etruria locks (not sure that single-handing locks counts as "carousing") and then stopped at the water point by the Industrial Museum next to another Kingsground boat, nb "Candlelight".
R moored overnight outside the Toby pub in the centre of Etruria. This is another quiet mooring but close to the shops - and Costa!!!
On Tuesday, R walked across to the Doulton Factory Outlet, where he bought another six beautiful Doulton crystal glasses at a very good price. In one of the display cases was a copy of a "First Day's Vase". On 13th June 1769, Josiah Wedgwood threw six "First Day's Vases" on the opening day of his new Etruria Factory (originally built right where MM is moored tonight). The motive power for the throwing wheel was provided by his partner, Thomas Bentley, turning a large hand crank. Four of these vases survived decorating and firing. Two are in private hands and two are in the Wedgwood Museum at Barlaston (we saw them in 2013 on the tour). This copy was originally priced at £6,500 but could be acquired for the knock-down price of just £1,625! A mere snip...
Later in the afternoon, R moved MM a few miles on to Westport Lake, passing Middleport Pottery on the way. This factory restoration is a success story financed by the Prince's Trust. It is the only fully working Victorian pottery in the world and it is very pleasing to see that it has a full order book and is working to capacity. Marvellous!
Westport Lake was formed by mining subsidence and is now a very popular nature reserve. Moorings get quite crowded and the only mooring gap was a couple of feet short for MM!
Luckily the boat behind was a hire boat that had left quite a gap in front and they were quite happy to be moved - if R could just move the boat for them. It turned out that they had only picked up their boat a few hours before and had never been on a narrowboat before. In fact, when R first saw them they were on the telephone to the hire base asking them how to switch the engine off!

On the northern edge of Westport Lake, by bridge 128, is where Josiah Wedgwood cut the first sod for the Trent & Mersey Canal on 26th July, 1766 - so 250 years and two weeks ago. The sod was carried away by the engineer James Brindley in a wheelbarrow. Although Stoke-on-Trent did celebrate the anniversary, there does not appear to be any visible memorial here.
Wednesday morning saw MM and R waiting to go through the Harecastle Tunnel. The tunnel is quite narrow so groups of up to eight boats are sent first one way and then the other. As it takes about 45 minutes to go through the 2,926 yards of the tunnel, there can be a long wait but luckily, R only had to wait about half an hour.
On the other side of the tunnel, R moored up very close to Kidsgrove Railway Station and went to pick up M.
Elle had sent R a cup cake from Barry and Emeline's wedding. Guy thought that is should have been for him. He particularly like the little crown and the "I Do!" flag.
As the mooring was very noisy, we decided to move on through the first of the 31 locks on the way to Middlewich. These locks were known to the old working boat people as "Heartbreak Hill" and are often still called that, although the last time we did these locks we found them to be very pleasant - so we hope we still feel the same way about them when we reach Middlewich
Just past the first lock, we found a very quiet and pleasant mooring with rings for the night.
Right next to our mooring was a very attractive stone bench, one of several on this stretch of the canal.
Three Days: 6 miles, 4 locks and 7.2 hours.
Trip: 229 miles, 160 locks and 170.5 hours.

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