Shhhhhh don't disturb Gnosall.. and they found the dog..

Moored Gnosall, Shropshire Union Canal

So the morning was spent on the internet purchasing presents for Christmas, all delivered free too!  Surely this is the best way to buy Christmas pressies.  There has just been an article on South Today (Yes we do watch that wherever we are in the country!) about thieves stealing presents from cars in city centre car parks, no need for me to worry about that!  I don’t do carry, you see, and I use the internet whenever I can. 

However there is an art to getting it delivered to a wharf or wherever… find a bridge, find a farm and find the name of the lane.. then you have a post code!  Address would be No Problem moored on canal by bridge, followed by the name of the road and post code.. oh and a telephone number somewhere on the order so they can get in touch if they get lost! 

Look how quiet it is on the Shroppie!

Not one boat moored up on these 48hr moorings.  We are moored on the other stretch of moorings which used to be 5 day moorings, not any more, they too are 48hr now.  In fact we were the only boat moored at Gnosall today!

OK, so I have already sent my family my Christmas wish list.. I am hoping, family dear, that you have not all purchased moi a present yet!  Reasons?

Ahem….

Well it wasn’t a mouse that chewed off the back of my slippers (size 7 ).  She loves me really… and once I had found them she did a wonderful job of doing a creep dance on her bellie while coming towards me to say sorry!.. “Meg you have your own toys to chew!”

Stocked up at the butchers today, and if you are passing Gnosall do use the butchers just a short way down the road from the Boat Inn.  The meat is excellent, I rate it as one of the best butchers I have visited on the system.  There is a bakery too a little further down on the left which sells fresh bread daily, and they slice it for you if you wish.

A wonderful story with a happy ending too during this month at Gnosall.. An alsation dog went missing after being scared off by fireworks.. we saw the posters going up, and realised that we had actually seen this dog the day before at Cowley, about a mile or so to the south.. we wondered where the owner was when we saw it, but by the time we had gone to investigate the dog had disappeared.  We informed the owner of our sighting, and a big search was started at Cowley to no avail.

I noticed the signs had gone today, and I asked a local if the dog had been found.. “Yes, found last week”  Apparently the dog was really hungry and turned up at a bbq which was being held in a large barn after a local shoot, but nobody could catch it, and it kept running away. 

The owner was called to the bbq, and when the dog came back again to see if it could get some food, it recognised it’s owner and came bounding over.  It was well fed at the bbq, and the owner held a thankyou party at the pub in nearby Church Eaton for everyone who was involved in finding her dog.. apparently most of the villagers were there!