This morning my brother took me foraging for food in the lanes and fields near his house. We scored big on wild blackberries and mushrooms and also a few damsons. The mushrooms made it home, but the rest were consumed on the spot. Then it was off to the visitor center of the Severn Valley Railway. These is the the Lady Armaghdale, a transexual steam engine that formerly masqueraded as Thomas the Tank Engine. [Archival photo] Of course, we all…
We’ve spent the past two days packing up our stuff on Wharram Percy, and have now handed it over to our manager. This year’s trip was 554.7 miles and 375 locks, so that’s an average of about six miles and four locks every day. Here’s the journey in Google Maps. At the start of the trip Paula bought some potted plants for the roof of the boat. The begonias have been in bloom ever since. Today we sacrificed them to…
We did the last few miles down to Stourport today, and are staying with my brother and his family. Their back yard has been taken over by a mother mallard, and eight rapidly expanding ducklings. They have a very small ornamental pond but a duck decided to nest there and raise a family. Pretty soon the baby ducks were big enough to start eating the pansies and other ornamental plants, so they decided to start feeding them to protect the…
Today I saw a wild badger for the first time in my life. Sorry, I did not get a picture as he went underground before I could get the camera out, so instead here’s a wood carving of Badger and Otter from Wind in the Willows. This was from the National Memorial Arboretum a few weeks ago. They have a complete set of Wind in the Willows characters that are not a memorial to anybody so far as I can…
We visited Wrightwick (pron WIT-ick) Manor… … twice yesterday, one to pay homage to the gardens and art collection, and again in the evening for an outdoor production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. First, here are some views of the gardens. Now a few more of William De Morgan’s creatures. Could this be the Ancient Mariner taking aim at a ornithologically questionable albatross? With a sea serpent ready to gobble up the carcass of the soon to be impaled avian? Here…
We saw the first cows of the day out of our bedroom porthole this morning, and the all ran over to the side of the canal to say goodbye as we left. Yesterday we picked up another crew member, Barbara, a neighbor from San Francisco. She’s already mastered lock operation and is learning how to steer the boat. We only did three locks today, then a long cruise on the lock free summit pound of the Staffordshire and Worcester canal….
On our last visit to Penkridge I wrote about the range of activities available there, from crown green bowling to buying bulk ferret fodder. On our visit today we found even more exciting ways to fritter away our leisure hours in the town that has quite rightly never been called the Las Vegas of North Staffordshire. By dint of careful long range planning I managed to arrive during the tiny window of time when the local heritage centre was open….
Today we rode the bus into Stafford again to see the Ancient High House. Paula said the photo I published of it yesterday was unflattering, so here’s a different angle. Yes, that’s Paula in the foreground with a bucket. She has great plans for that bucket. The house was built by a rich wool merchant in 1595, and remained a family home until the early 20th century. King Charles I and Prince Rupert stayed there for three days at the…
Though I was born in Staffordshire, I’d never been to the county town, Stafford, until today. I have to say that everyone we met seems to be very nice. At the bus stop we got talking to an old waterman. These days he has his own canal boat and also does volunteer work for canal and river trust, but he got started as a kid leading the horse pulling a commercial boat, delivering coal from the mines on Cannock Chase…
This morning we cruised to Weston-upon-Trent and walked for half an hour to Amerton Farm, a combination B&B, farm shop, collection of craft shops, steam railway, gypsy fortune teller, and petting zoo. We made for the petting zoo. Paula was waylaid by the goats but I was questing for alpaca. As well as the alpacas and goats… … there were sheep… rabbits, guinea pigs, ponies, donkeys… … chickens… … and a couple of emaciated looking reindeer. However, Paula bonded most…