Yesterday morning we set out at our normal time, planning to stop for the night at the SUCS moorings just south of Brewood, as we love it there. “The best laid plan's” springs to mind! Just short of Rye Hill Cutting there was a long line of moored boats, with people standing about. ‘What’s up here’ we said. There was a tree down right across the canal. We pulled into the bank and I leapt off to go and see what the score was. Two BW blokes were in attendance, and as usual were non-committal, shaking heads and sucking teeth. ‘Well, we’re working as fast as we can, and there’s only the two of us, and once we’ve got the tree sawed up and removed, we don’t know what’s under the water’. ‘That’s fine’, says I, ‘I just wanted to know whether we needed to tie up or not’. About an hour later boats started to move through, but we had already decided to stay where we were for the rest of the day as it was hissing it down with rain by this time. So stay we did, but not quite as long as we had planned!
At 3.30am this morning we had a rude awakening! Cassie was stumbling about, having had a fit. Clothes on and dog manhandled onto the towpath, I proceeded to walk her up and down, up and down, on the lead, while she walked around me in clockwise circles, which is what she does after a fit (she’s blind at this stage of her recovery.) She was very agitated and took a bit longer than usual to come back to normal, but that was probably because she had been crashing into things on the boat before we managed to heave her off. By the time she was compos mentis enough to allow her to get back on the boat, we were wide awake and it was getting light, so we had a cuppa and decided to move on. So at 5.15am we pulled the pins, and set off, yawning, into the morning (bit of poetry there!!) Pity it wasn’t a nice morning, but it was peaceful, puttering along with only the birds for company. We watered at Wheaton Aston and by 8.30am we were moored at our chosen spot and I was cooking a long awaited breakfast. A day’s cruising all done before breakfast! However, I suspect that we will be falling asleep in front of the telly tonight, so an early night will be called for – I’m not at my best after only four and a half hours sleep! Just a thought – if we had continued our journey to here yesterday, Cassie would have had her fit in the same place that she had the first one, almost 2 years ago. This is also where Rog stubbed his toe which started all the trouble – how spooky is that? It makes us wonder why we love this spot so much!
Tomorrow we will leave the Shroppie and turn to starboard down the Staffs and Worcester – it’s a very long time since we cruised the southern end to Stourport, so it will seem like new waters for us.
12.3 miles and 1 lock
Give Cassie a hug from us, poor girl.
ReplyDeleteLesley
Hope Cassie is ok!
ReplyDeleteLesley - done!
ReplyDeleteAli & John - yes she's fine, just Rog and I who are exhausted after our very short night!! xxx