Penkridge Market is great, so is the weather..

Teddesley to Deptmore Lock, Staff and Worcs Canal, 2.5 miles 2 locks

Up and about fairly early this morning to get chores done and the dogs walked before catching the bus from the road just by the lock at Teddesley Boat Centre.. We both hailed the bus down, crossing fingers that he would stop.. it’s not a regular bus stop you see, but I have stopped a bus from there before and it worked last time!

It must have been a desperate wave, because the car in front of the bus indicated to come into the side of the road, and stopped to see what the matter was.. I pointed to the bus behind, and she was somewhat annoyed.. I wonder.. did she not look in the mirror when indicating to stop??  But a good samaritan surely this lady was.. I think it was great that she was not in such a hurry to check out that we were OK on the side of the road waving like mad!  Well done that lady..

The market was great.. we spend a couple of hours wandering around.  There was an auction on.. well a couple actually.  One was in a building and had all sorts of house clearance stuff, furniture and tools.. lots of men around the tools.. there was some old fashioned stuff too.. I would have liked to have bid on a couple of bits, but living on a narrowboat means I can’t hoard like I used to!

The other auction was for some chickens, oh and 4 Muscovy ducks would you believe.. also on the auction was eggs!.. Duck eggs, goose eggs, bantams, chickens white and brown big and small.. amazing stuff!

However, we did not come home empty handed.. some nice fresh veg of course, some other handy bits and bobs and a catch for one of the cupboard doors that we have been looking for since last March!  We got three of the catches when we saw them back then, because the shop only had three but we had four doors to do.. now they are all done!

Back on the bus and once again asked the driver to stop by the bridge which he duly did, then after homemade soup we pulled the pins to cruise for a couple of hours in the glorious sunshine..

Look at that sky.. and hey look at Vic in his shirt sleeves as he nearly does the splits kicking the gates open..

But it saves him walking round by pushing the far gate open and walking back to open the other gate by hand..

I really enjoyed the short cruise today, for once I was really warm, and now I can’t wait for the summer, and hope that it won’t be like last year, when we only had 2 bbq’s because of the weather, and even then as I finished doing one of them it started to rain!

A lovely mooring to put the pins in.. We hadn’t decided where to moor this evening, deciding to stop when we saw somewhere nice so we could enjoy the rest of the sunshine across the countryside..

Bit more effort to cut up some logs for drying under the front cratch cover, then Vic dived into the engine bay to bale out some water in the bottom of the bilge.. a leaking drip basin the cause.. new one picked up today though.

So a very full and enjoyable day today, and now I am going to watch the footy.. England had better win!!