Pea souper delays us leaving for Market Drayton

Knighton to Market Drayton, Shropshire Union Canal, 5.25 miles 5 locks

Gosh it was dank and foggy as I went on deck this morning, the visibility was around 30yards.. “I’m not moving in this!”.. “But two boats have passed” said itchy feet Vic.. Heh, he wouldn’t be the one on the tiller would he!..

Over the weekend I finished the last of the varnishing.. it was slow going on Saturday, I think my body had had enough of working above my shoulders.  Each brush stroke on the ceiling was killing me.. but I did it!!  I kept promising myself that I would have the most laziest day ever the following day…

So Sunday came.. and I did absolutely nothing!.. well that isnt exactly true, I finished putting the 4700 odd picture album back on the server.  It had been hacked in the spring, well my whole website had, from the inside of the server people would you believe..  I know there are a lot of you who have asked when I would be putting it back.. well here it is ——> Picture Albums

I found myself another web server in the United States this time, but it has taken me all this time to get all my pages uploaded.

Well we did move eventually today…

After lunch dropping down the very picturesque Tyrley Locks.  These locks drop the canal through a cutting of stone.. gawd knows how they managed to get the canal through this place.. but it is the same all the way along this canal, the earth and stone from the cuttings was transported to make the huge embankments.. if it wasn’t for both of those there would have been scores of locks..

Mooring spots are wonderful on this canal too especially on the top of some of the embankments, but special equipment is recommended..

Where there is an embankment there is always protective concrete along the edge.. a shelf in fact below the water line, but not below the bottom of boats.. these wheels keep the boat from knocking against the shelf.. I got these from screwfix.. handiest bit of kit especially on the Shroppie!

I see they emptied the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.. There is a great pic on my blog from 2007, which I took from the valley below, of NP actually going over the aqueduct!

The water falling out of the bottom into the River Dee (pic from the beeb).. there is a lovely article about it on the BBC website here.  A young lad won the chance to “Pull the plug” by winning a competition, in fact there is a lot of information in the article plus a video of the event.

We have moored just outside Market Drayton on yet another embankment, it’s very quite here indeed although we are less than a mile away from the town.   We might stay tomorrow and visit the market on Wednesday, apparently it is a very good one..