The canals system has many memories of the days when canals were used for commerce rather than pleasure. This crane is one of them.

There were no electric motors to make lifting easier in those days. If you wanted to get something heavy off the boat and onto the wharf you had to crank it off by hand.

We stopped at a chandlery today, in a huge marina. It was a little walk from the towpath, through some parkland, with a statue of battle swans in flight growing out of the pond.

These swans are not doing too well.

They are trying to cover it up, but I suspect this was the swans’ biological warfare research center, and something went horribly wrong.

When we got back to the boat, I noticed that the batteries had not charged up this morning. It turned out the alternator cable had broken. We called Alex who called River and Canal Rescue to come and fix it. That’s like the Automobile Association, but for canal boats. An hour or so later Grandpa and Donk turned up, a comedy double act who also fix boats. They did a fine job of getting us going again.

Somewhat delayed we moored up on the outskirts of Burton on Trent.