Stone to Ingestre

Our glorious chums, Stephen & Lucia, known by all as those Sicilians! Are back. And they’re out on their boat, Two’s Company, doing the Leicester Ring. We hope to coincide . . . somewhere and that somewhere is Wolseley Bridge (No 70) on the Trent & Mersey for the sole aim of dining together at the Shimla Indian restaurant. So we slip our moorings at 0845 and bimble a few hours to just beyond bridge 78 and adjacent to a rare nature reserve – an inland salt marsh.

We slip away . . . no one notices . . leaving the two lovely ladies on Lazy Days . .
Another M&S purchase (2 for a tenner) – got to keep the old girl sweet! 😉
One of those “awfully nice” hi-ziz a rind har
Some wild geraniums (meadow cranesbill?)
And some more wild flowers – wild sweet peas
You do meet some lovely folk on hire boats – here are some Netherlanders from Zeeland – yes, a new flag for me! Such grace, they all speak such excellent English… how’s your Dutch? I did say there’s a song from OMD but I don’t think it’s that Zeeland.
And after letting out the Zeelanders, in comes Steve
Three locks today, all well spaced out. Aston, Sandon and then Weston
There are some lovely bridges on the cut – such a lot of work went into these and probably by guys upside down for most of the day?
Um, as we used to say in Nottingham, “it looks black over Bill’s Mother”, luckily the rain really did go away . .
Final mooring point.
Oh, that restaurant https://www.shimlapalace.com/ notes to follow . . . Tripadvisor review to follow . . .