Retirement with No Problem

Bank Holiday Weekend – Moored The Anchor, High Offley, Shropshire Union Canal

Not exactly hiding, but tied securely on our pins here on the rather nice 14 day moorings near the fantastic Anchor Pub.. some have said is the best pub in the world!..

We have a double spring on the ropes, both bow and stern.. boats are moving quickly one behind the other this weekend, all hoping to ‘do the ring’.  There is a line of narrowboats from here for about 3 miles towards Market Drayton.. they can’t do tick-over past all that lot, they would fall asleep at the wheel!  So tying No Problem up well is important so I don’t have to shout!  But I did at one hire boat.. gawd.. he was causing a white wash on the far bank so fast he was going.. our pins nearly gave up on him.  The narrowboat further up was not so lucky, and it wasn’t long ‘till I was up the towpath giving a hand to retrieve the stern end from the far side of the canal..

The next boat was trying to come through.. “Wait!”.. sheeeeeeeesh madness!  Still they are on their hols and need to hurry to get round the 110 miles and 94 locks in two weeks. That is getting on for 200 or so ‘lock miles’.. working that out, ie divide that by 3mph to get the number of hours.. errrrrrrrr 7 hours a day?.. oh and that’s not counting having to slow down or ‘queue – queue’ at busy locks.. so you can see why they are in a hurry!.. but here they are missing out on the most fantastic pub, more of which I will write about later.. but it has just won the Staffordshire in Bloom Award 2007.. heh, only the fourth time in a row they have won that..

Mikron Theatre Group last Friday getting ready to perform out in the garden.. they started a bit late, well the queue for the bar stretched to the canal.. everyone wants a beer.. but here they are in full swing..

Just four actors/actresses and the change of characters done on the fly with a different hat or clothes.. absolutely fantastic.  This particular performance was about Thomas Telford and depicted the history as well as the modern day narrowboater using his canals, the Shroppie of course was one he engineered!

Lovely to meet Christine and Paul again with Waterway Routes, and I was delighted to invite them both for dinner.. we had plenty to natter about as usual.. Waterway Routes is to feature on the front cover of October’s Issue of Canalboat, and there is an in depth report on this very unique dual power narrowboat inside.. Paul and Christine’s narrowboat runs either on power via electric motor, almost silently, or on diesel engine power. Awesome.

Over dinner we discussed a sign close by….

Non towpath side this one.. wonder why it isn’t on the towpath side?  Here is the very nice house whos owners love to be by the canal but don’t like narrowboats!..

You can see the sign in the centre.. Now then, is this a British Waterways official sign?  If it is then why is it not on the towpath side where all can see it?  Or have the owners of the house gone tongue in cheek and tried to get away with a sign and logo of BW to stop people mooring in a nice location?  Shall I send it to BW to find out?..

We have our opinion.. I might just send it to British Waterways and ask the question!

It’s getting late, but before I finish for this evening I must show you this pic.. here we have three bloggers’ narrowboats together (is that a record?) No Problem, Moore2Life and Waterway Routes..