Market Drayton

Got a bit bored and it was a bit shallow here – the boat bumps and the wee doggie da nae like it! And with the forecast of rain coming we pushed on just a short distance to Goldstone Wharf – managed to get in, just. This would mean our cruising time on the wet day was short.

👋 Big wave to all our readers! New hello to Tim & Heather 👋

The next day saw us chugging through Woodseaves Cutting – again our Mr Telford had got his navvies to cut thru the sandstone – this is an infamous couple of miles, shallow & narrow with the sides sometimes reaching 100 feet.

Looking ahead to the narrow cutting
A bit creepy and jungly – our last visit here, with David, saw us (well, Steve) making monkey & other jungle animal noises!
At the end is Tyrley wharf – this house is still for sale – with its own mooring
These locks area bit fearsome, with nasty by-washes after each lock
Toby is looking his age
At the end of the locks . . .
Moored near the huge aqueduct, as usual. Then off shopping and erm, pubbing!
Market Drayton is home to the Joules brewery – an old brewery that has been revived. Their pub, the Red Lion is a marvellous place – good beer & good food (beef stroganoff & Jambalaya)
And there’s Mr Joule himself
They do 3 or 4 regular beers plus a new stout and this Shropshire hop – very tasty indeed

Well, that was the wet Thursday which lead to an even wetter Friday. Steve cycled to Morrisons to shop – inspired to make his own Jambalaya! Saturday & Sunday sees the Floating Market come to town – a dozen or so trading boats display their bunting and wares . . .

One of the woes of boating is the lack of getting stuff delivered, or is it? Viv’s little set of fairy lights in the cratch finally died and so we ordered a new set, solar powered from Amazon – there’s a locker inside Morrison’s! Next day delivery.
A casualty of the Tyrley locks – a stud was ripped off – luckily it was still inside the top button, so could retrieve it but how to fix it? Another Amazon order – pop rivet gun & rivets . .
Our final stop, had to run the engine today, too many dull days and we did watch a movie (Bluray player on, TV on, sound bar on…..), so we were down 110Ah but the sun did come out later and pushed more amps into the batteries !
Lots of lovely (?) things . .
Including these mirrors – bought one for Gail
Hmm, not a usual thing you get to see in people’s cratch – a wood fired pizza oven
The one (and only) floating bar! It being only 10:30, we didn’t linger.
By 1330 Amazonians had delivered the pop riveter but the blind rivets are all too short! Back to Homebase!!
These seem better – I only want one rivet!!
Job done – added some super glue just to make sure!

The day was rounded off with a swim in the river for Toby and a “wet” for us two, back in the Red Lion – to try their seasonal keg beer IPA! Nice. Off tomorrow . . . heading for Audlem and lots of locks.