A long days cruising

It's been a long day's cruising today, by our standards anyway. We set off about 10.30 and went down the locks through Stone to fill up with water just below Star Lock. While the tank was filing Roger nipped into Stone for some compost to plant up the tomatoes as they'd outgrown their pots and were ready to go up on the roof.
It's been threatening to rain all day but we actually managed to get away with only one light shower and I was inside washing the dishes at the time so it didn't bother me.
There have been quite a lot of boats moving today, luckily they were mostly going in the opposite direction and we managed to time it right at about half of the locks so that we went in as one came out. I'm getting quite good at steering the boat into and out of the locks now. I might just have to carry on and let Roger do all the hard work. At Hoo Mill Lock there was a rusty old steam engine hidden in a shed in someone's garden, such a shame, it was crying out to be restored.

We arrived at Tixall Wide too late this evening. By 5pm all the moorings were taken, so we turned round and went back down to the junction and moored on the main line.

We'll move back to the wide tomorrow when some of the boats leave. As it happens it turned out for the best, as just after we'd moored up Ned from Cabincare phoned. He'd seen us passing Great Heywood Marina and was inviting us out for a meal tonight. That's wonderful! I couldn't decide what we were having for dinner so now I don't have to cook anything and someone else can do the dishes too!