Friday 14^th September

Took Phoenix her early morning walk and spotted three Kingfishers between bridges 9 and 10. a lovely sight and as usual no camera.

Left the mooring and motored the short distance up to Brewood where we stopped and walked into the village to go shopping at Coopers, Co-op and Spa.

Moored just in front of us was this lovely little Caraboat which we had been moored near to at Tixal Wide.

* Caraboat

Note for Bill and Jacky, we passed the Countrywide Cruiser base at Brewood whose boats also look quite nice and it makes a good starting point for the Four Counties Ring.

* Countrywide Cruiser

Carried on to Wheaton Aston where we were lucky enough to see a boat leave the mooring at Turners garage as we approached the bridge so nipped in to fill up with diesel at 75.9p \ ltr.

Followed two very slow boats all the way to Gnosal but with lovely scenery and bridges like this one it did not matter.

* Balustrade Bridge

As Carolann said that Graham could have a new boat if it was something totally different to the lovely boat they have now I thought that this hull would be the ideal candidate; so Graham get your skates on before it is snapped up.

* New Boat for C & G

All along the canal we were spotting herons wading in the canal, on the adjacent fields, or sitting on the moorings resting a leg.

* One Legged Heron

We also seem to be encountering a large number of boats with the name Phoenix, funny how we never noticed them before we had our Phoenix.

* Another in the Phoenix Fleet

Once we had moored up in Gnosal Heath and had lunch we decided to go and explore the village of Gnosal which is about 1 mile away. It is a nice little village and everybody seemed friendly and it has a Co-op, Post Office, Dentist and Café as well as a nice church. We spotted another guide dog pup up ahead but they were gone before we could get to them. As we wondered around the village a lady asked if we were lost and noticing Phoenix she said that she had a friend who was a puppy walker, it turned out that it was the one we had seen earlier. Apparently there is only one in the village and everybody knows her as it is a very dog friendly place. She told us we could take a nice walk back to the canal along the disused railway line which is well used by local dog walkers. You can in fact use it to cycle the 7 miles into Stafford.

We enjoyed the walk back and arrived just in time for tea and the home made cake June had made on our way here this morning.

Saturday 15^th September

Lovely bright sunny morning so walked Phoenix back into Gnosal along the railway to get the paper and some provisions. Arrived back in time to meet Chris and Lorraine, who had just arrived at their boat.

Put the provisions away and C & L joined us for morning coffee and home made biscuits. We spent the morning catching up with our boating experiences and then went off to the Boat for lunch. Had a good meal at a reasonable price (2 courses for £8.95).

After lunch we went back to C & L’s boat and spent the afternoon sitting on the grassy bank nattering away and enjoying the lovely sunshine until at 5pm when we returned to Autumn Myst.

June watched Strictly Come Dancing whilst I prepared the next 2 weeks of meals for phoenix.

As I was preparing the food in the open cratch this family of ducks came begging for food. They are so cheeky that they we almost standing up looking in the boat. Lorraine had told us that they had watched them grow up from tiny little chicks and they always brought food for them. Most unusual to have to white twins in the clutch.

* The Cheeky Sisters