Our first full week's cruise together. Sean finished school today for half-term and the crew, together with our non-crewing guest, mother-in-law Pauline were due to arrive around 4.00pm for the load up and departure. I spent the afternoon tidying up the boat and polishing all the brass, even polished the barometer, but called it a day after that and wandered down to The Swan for a pint to await the crew's arrival.

The original plan was to moor as close to the junction as we could so that we could unload the car, park it behind the Swan and get going without delay but the junction was so busy that I ended up going up two locks and mooring just above. When the crew arrived we had to drive up the track to the top lock and then carry everything a few hundred yards to the boat. When I say everything I mean everything, I couldn't believe how much stuff was coming out of the car! A couple of troughs of flowers for the roof and a folding high stool for the steerer were among the goodies but there was an awful lot more! We sorted everything out while Sandy took the car back to The Swan and then walked back and just after 4.30pm we were off.

The afternoon had been glorious sunshine and it continued into a glorious evening as we wandered up the Trent & Mersey. The scenery at first was beautiful as we cruised through Ravenshaw Wood in the evening sunshine but it would deteriorate as we passed through Armitage and Rugeley although it was by no means unpleasant. At Kings Bromley we passed the new marina which had only been opened in April and was looking quite empty, but I expect it will soon become popular. Handsacre and Armitage are a couple of close villages which I drive through every week catching glimpses of the canal, so now was a chance to see where the canal goes when it dips out of sight from the road. We even managed to find the Armitage Shanks factory which cannot be seen from the road giving an interesting canalside view, if you call piles of toilets fifty foot high interesting! Past the Plum Pudding, where I often envy the boats moored up for their evening meal, we came to the 'narrows, and, boy, were they narrow! This used to be a tunnel until the roof was taken off and it is a strange feeling going through here particularly as the way twists and turns a little so you can't see if anything is coming towards you. Lord knows what you would do if there were, as although there are passing places they seemed too small to get a 58 foot boat in. We managed to get through (just) without hitting the sides and, thankfully, with no-one trying to come the other way and were soon off into Rugeley.

Out again into pleasant countryside as the sun began to go down and past a fabulous old country house on our right, which turned out to be Bishton Hall School, heading towards Wolseley and Colwich. Just before here, at bridge 69, we saw a balloon taking off behind the Wolseley Garden Centre and Sean got a superb shot of it under the bridge (see the Gallery) as well as one or two others. Wolseley makes a good spot to stop with the Wolseley Arms just up the road but we wanted to press on a little further as we had set ourselves a fairly long cruise for the week.

On through Colwich Lock and into Little Haywood where we moored for the night. There was little sign that there was a village nearby and we didn't go exploring preferring instead to delve into the delights of the shopping that Sandy had brought with her and have our dinner on board. As the evening light faded we had a great meal, complete with some fine wine, as we savoured the delights of a beautiful countryside mooring after a pleasant afternoon's cruise. The only worry was a few trains thundering by early on but they soon stopped and we had a peaceful night.