If you open the Uber app it really looks as if Uber operates in Stone, but when you actually want to go somewhere, it turns out that they don’t have anyone willing to take you there. In fact we just wanted to get back from the grocery store to the boat (a bit less than a mile), but no luck. We also tried the local cab company but they said they couldn’t get anyone to us for half an hour so we lugged the groceries back by hand. If we had know that Uber was faking it, we would have bought a wheelie suitcase for the heavy stuff.

Whatever.

The weather was nice today, so we went on cruising all afternoon, through the countryside north of stone and through Stoke-on-Trent. The buddleia is in bloom.

Yes, it’s an invasive foreign species, but it adds some dramatic color to otherwise drab stretches of canal and railway. The rowan trees are fruiting now too.

The bottle kilns that were the major industry in this part of the world are now illegal to use due to the air pollution they create, but the remaining ones are listed structures so they can’t be turned down. However, they’re not exactly suitable to be converted into bijou residences or live/work lofts, being a bit deficient in the window department, so they just sit there surrounded by derelict factories or new housing developments.

Though there are still a few ceramics factories operating here, the region is open to other sorts of commerce.

Tacle [sic] and bait, sure. Air guns and archery. OK, if you must. Boats and engines. No problem, we are on a canal. Country & Western line dancing? What has turned this town into a perverted hellhole?

It would be nice if this was some weird industrial process for producing psychedelic oatcakes, but I think it’s just a water park.

We are moored by the side of a lovely park with a lake and a cafe. It’s a popular spot with boaters, we got the last mooring space. We had dinner in the park at one of their picnic tables.