A night at Fradley Junction

On Thursday Mikey and John, two of Olly’s friends, came over to our mooring at Sandon to join us for the evening.

Olly, Mike, Doug and John having the inevitable wine and nibbles……….. 

…….. before Mikey, James, (Olli the waiter), Olly, Doug and John enjoyed a very good meal at the Dog and Doublet in Sandon village. It was a great evening for all of us and great to meet Mikey and John.

Yesterday we awoke to ‘Queen Maeve’ adrift across the canal with her pins hanging loose and two boats unable to get through!  Too asleep to think about a taking a photo, we set to make things good again.  Olly slept through most of the commotion! 

It was also very wet and cold when we woke and it was time to put the chimney on and get the fire lit to dry out the day’s wet clothes.

By the time we got to Great Haywood we’d seen smoke rising from many boats chimneys.

After a couple of hours cruising the showers had stopped by about 1 o’ clock and it hadn’t dampened anyone’s spirits.

‘Queen Maeve’ at the Great Haywood lock.

Approaching Rugeley, the power station cooling towers were giving an impressive amount of steam.

At Spode House wharf you need to be aware of a few things, especially in the dark!

A tight squeeze as always at the Armitage Tunnel – hold your breath!

A kippered Olly  on ‘Queen Maeve’ emerging from ‘Chance’s’ smoke filled Armitage Tunnel.

We arrived at Fradley Junction by 6 o’ clock, where we were very surprised indeed to find a couple of spaces for the two boats at the moorings between locks 17 and 16, and it was great that Olly’s partner Mark managed to break his busy schedule and join us for the evening.

We had a brilliant evening in the Black Swan with good food and good company…………

……… ending with a night cap (of course) on board ‘Chance’.  Olly found the whole thing over whelming!