Back to base - a pit stop

We ate in the pub last night - not the best food sadly. We had a nice walk through the village back to the boat via dirty lane and a bit of a fractious night sleep due to the cat insisting  on sleeping where my legs wanted to be.

Up and away for 9.45 (we are getting better) and a lovely cruise back to our mooring. It's always nice to know you have a guaranteed mooring for the night. Even if the silt bar bumped Percy off her approach, not helped as two boats were passing the mooring so I could not go in at the required sharp angle. 

The day was notable for the number of times we had to hit reverse to clear the leaves from the prop.  A small price to pay for the lovely wooded sections that were ever more raining leaves into the cut. It did occur to me I wonder if C&RT put any extra 'scores' to the dredging of this canal due to the leaf harvest each year..... 

Looking up and down the canal from the engine room after doing the morning lube ! 

Our overnight mooring looking onto Dirty Lane Bridge

I do like this canal  - can't fail to be impressed by the ambition of Telford in planning the cuttings and the embankments. Even more so the hard grafting navvies who dug it out by hand. 

Norbury was a small busy bit of the day with two hire boats loitering for the water point. Thaksfully the secodn was competant and held back to let us through. Diesel here is 85p better than the 89p we paid at Turners, but it was easier to service the boat at Turners. 

Soup and Ciabatta on the go follows by coffee and Cherry liqueur chocolates! 

Back on her mooring. We noticed a tyre fender missing and dug it out of the mud before mooring up - I suspect I knocked it off on leaving  - could have been disaster iff the prop had picked that up !! Another job to get it reattached  - you can see the tyre 'resting' after its recovery 

The return home was predicated in one part by the boiler at home locking out - it's an oil boiler that on its tenth anniversary is good to its word - or the manual that advises most of the burner parts need replacing - I spoke to the manufacturing company that is in Telford and they advised rather than chasing the problem by replacing parts I buy a complete new burner which was on my radar. So on arriving at the mooring I swept the roof and jumped in the van to Telford to get said burner for the local plumber to fit as and when.

Talking of the roof we have been getting soot from the exhaust this trip... I suspect it's a combination of older diesel and not running the engine so much this year  so what is in there is easier to blow out - softer if you like. Another job will be to take off the exhaust manifold and clean that ( inside) then clean the exhaust stack with the chimney brush... winter work.

One thing I did see today on the trip back was a boat that has one of those cheaper diesel heaters retro fitted... got me thinking of putting something similar in the fore cabin to give some instant heat for diy trips over the winter - another project maybe 

So back for a bit but the boat was left to be reoccupied when we are able .....