We’d decided that heading up the 12 broad locks to the end of the Erewash Canal then coming back again, or flogging up through the Cranfleet Cut past Boots factories to Nottingham was best saved for another trip. Still, before setting off down the River Soar for Loughborough and Leicester we thought a wander might be in order.

Trent Junction cum Trent Lock is the kind of place where you want to make sure where you’re going, particularly with big and small canal boats, tupperware cruisers, sailing dinghies and rowers coming at you from all directions. It was reassuring to see that the Cranfleet Cut Flood Lock had been chained open, so no serious water level issues were expected.

There’s no decent vehicular access to the Scout Camp on the other side of the river, so everything is ferried across in a small bathtub with an outboard motor.

Heading up the Erewash, there are loads of houseboats, but we were puzzled by the Trinity establishment. We weren’t sure whether the ramshackle car port / conservatory had been built around the boat’s stern, or if there’d been a nasty accident reversing into the mooring.

We were somewhat puzzled by the huge tree growing between these two sheds, too.

I suppose if you’re going down the houseboat route, you might as well do it properly!

Finally, returning to Trent Lock, a boat coming down said the Erewash was “lovely” and not the hard work we though, but we decided to be lazy and stick with plan A, and retired to the caff for a snack. We opted for coffee and cake rather than the canine menu.

Shardlow, or – as it was – Shardlow Port is pretty much the end (or start) of the Trent & Mersey Canal (which connects the Rivers Trent and Mersey – there’s clue in the name). As we approached we were surprised by the new speed limit – we thought the canal limit was 4 mph.

We managed to moor up at the well known Clock Warehouse, now a pub.

And – despite the cheap but otherwise excellent food – one that blotted its copybook twice! First, they didn’t have Guinness on tap. Bang! Then, when asked for a Coke instead, produced a glass of Pepsi without saying anything. Bang, Bang!

The weather wasn’t helping, and having been through Shardlow many times before, we failed to take any photos, but here are some we prepared earlier.  About 12 years earlier… they’re well cooked now.

Just before crossing the River Trent/River Derwent  Junction and heading out over the large expanse of water that lies under and around the M1, Song & Dance started going nowhere fast, and in no particular direction. With a squally wind blowing up broadside on, it took some time to get tied up – even temporarily – before heading down the weed hatch to give the propeller a stern talking to. Good job it happened before we were on the river junction section itself!

With the prop shaft suitably chastised, the wind and rain stopped, the sun came out and we headed across the ocean, then through Sawley Flood Lock to Sawley Marina for some diesel. By now it was a pleasant sunny and warm late afternoon, and we’d intended to moor up at the nearest available opportunity. Sadly, the only moorings left were private/long term places, so we had to lock down on to Trent proper, and hope!

We found a suitable spot right on the Junction at Trent Lock. Two pubs and a cafe within two minutes walk. It’s a busy spot – the River Trent and the River Soar come together, there’s a huge weir, sailing club, the junction with the Erewash canal, and the Cranfleet Cut (a canalised shortcut heading for Nottingham), an outdoor adventure centre for the scouts. Late in the day, we decided to explore a bit more after a decent night’s kip.

Still thirsting for a Guinness, we did however take a little totter along the path, noticing that CaRT were still spending money trying to make dogs laugh.

And as a reminder that we were in broad-beam country, the Cranfleet Cut seemed absolutely littered with huge broad beam work flats used for collecting the spoils from dredging.

Finally retiring to the pub for a pre-prandial, a glass of Guinness was procured. It looked like Guinness, with a lovely creamy head. After several thirst quenching mouthfuls, the realisation came that it was almost, but not entirely unlike Guinness. Not off, or thin and bitter as sometimes used to happen when the pipes weren’t cleaned regularly enough. Actually quite pleasant, but almost certainly not real Guinness. Perhaps they’d got the barrels mixed up with something else. Obviously not our day! Or perhaps the next big thing after fake news is fake beer.

Back in the ginormous marina, Monday saw Fran heading off in the car for home, as – apart from wanting to stop dragging the car around with us – there were some things to sort out as we had a decorator coming to paint the outside of the house. A journey from hell, she got home in the end about three hours later than expected. But at least on Tuesday she was invited to dinner at Chirkley Court, the new posh hotel near Leatherhead, to celebrate her niece’s big birthday. They got VIP treatment, as her nephew is one of the duty managers…

Meanwhile, Song & Dance looked jealously across at the Wide Body department: you can get much bigger boats on this part of the network, but most looked pretty much like stationary live-aboard boats. Good job they’re not boating around causing chaos. Reminds me of another one we saw down on the Thames somewhere called Fat Bottomed Girl, presumably in contrast to at least two rather slimmer narrowboats called Flat Bottomed Girl.

The marina really is huge (it’s more than a mile to walk around it), and comes complete with it’s own shopping centre, bar, decent restaurant, farm shop, cafe, chandlery, holiday lodges, boat rides etc. etc. And they’re still expanding. It’s a tourist destination in its own right. If you’re that sort of tourist…

With the boss returning by train on Wednesday afternoon, we were glad to escape on Thursday morning and sail out into the peace and quiet of the Derbyshire countryside. We’d seen a different Comfortably Numb up on the Caldon Canal, but seeing the name again seemed to sum up how we felt, recovering from folk festivals, mad marinas and the like. It was good to be back boating.

We rather liked Aston Marina, as marinas go. Nice open layout, set in pleasant countryside, reasonable walking distance to Stone, and a rather good if a bit pricey restaurant on site. Good job we don’t moor there normally.

The welcoming committee took no time at all in saying hello, closely followed by demanding food with menaces.

The local security guard made sure nothing untoward happened.

With the laundry maid keeping the washing machine going flat out, on Friday morning the chauffeur commandeered a taxi back to The Holly Bush near Leek, to pick up the car and relocate it to Aston. It might prove useful to go to Bromyard Festival next weekend, but dragging the car around with the boat is becoming a real drag. Not for much longer, we hope.

Saturday morning, we headed off in pleasant weather down the well-trodden path to Great Haywood.

Just outside the marina, this bunch of geese had taken over the cow’s watering hole.

And – lucky us – we found a spot right in the middle of the Great Haywood Visitor Moorings, and headed off to The Clifford Arms, where food was plentiful and surprisingly cheap for us southerners.

We’d dawdled rather longer than expected on the Caldon Canal, what with trains, cars, towpath walks and the like, and some things were needing attention. The dirty laundry pile was becoming excessive, a pump-out would soon be urgent, and we really needed to get the car back home: dragging it around was becoming a drag.

And then SWMBO said “Jackstraws Morris are dancing at Bromyard Folk Festival in 10 days. Without Biggles to look after, if we kept the car up here for a bit longer, we could go, couldn’t we… I’ve brought my kit!”

Stoke’s Festival Park Marina had helped out several times before: moorings with electric for the washing machine – tick; relaxed about leaving cars – tick; pump-out facilities – tick. Except that they were full when we wanted to be there. We could probably get a pump-out, but as for mooring, no chance. CaRT have self-service pump-out machines at Park Lane Wharf (on the way but broken) and Etruria (on the way), but you need a special “credit” card to operate those. Handily, these are only available by mail order (useful when on a boat) or from very rare retailers nowhere near the facility. And these pump-out stations a rare enough that carrying spare cards around is a bit like giving CaRT a long term loan – we haven’t needed one in three years, and the Environment Agency ones on the rivers use a different card. And in any case, that didn’t solve the laundry problem. So we ended up re-planning, and booked ourselves into Aston Marina, just south of Stone for a couple of days, and decided we’d better get a move on.

So off we set. Waving goodbye to The Holly Bush on a pleasant Bank Holiday Monday morning we climbed back up Hazelhurst Locks, pottered past Park Lane Wharf, down through Stockton Brook Locks (the abandoned railway there still had its tracks, but trees were growing through them there) and managed to moor at Milton again. Milton on the Tuesday after a Bank Holiday was much like Milton on a Monday, apart from the café being open. They needn’t have bothered…

And then we finished off the Caldon Canal, and moored up at Etruria Junction, frustratingly close to the pump-out facilities, frustratingly far from any means of using them. It’s a major CaRT depot, but no-one was able or interested in helping us out. Apparently the Park Lane Wharf one had been fixed earlier that day, but the chap said the biggest cause of failures was misuse of the magic cards, so perhaps it’s all a plot to persuade the powers that be that they are so under used there really is no demand for them. After all, they charge more for you to do it yourself than most boatyards/marinas charge to do it for you. One of life’s mysteries.

So much for lazing about doing not a lot on a narrowboat: Friday proved a busy day. We’d booked the car in for an MOT at noon back near Piper Boats because we thought we’d be nearby, but the best laid plans… Meanwhile SWMBO was still suffering from coughing and some new chest pains following the Sidmouth lurgy. As the MOT centre was near a hospital with a walk in centre, and we were going right past, madam was duly dropped off to see if she could get a chest MOT as well. Fortunately, both car and human passed with flying colours: in Fran’s case it was a normal viral cough/cold and a pulled muscle probably from coughing too hard (or overdoing the windlass at locks).

Anyway, we thought the Churnet Valley Railway were running trains between Cheddleton and Froghall during the afternoon, and decided to investigate, particularly as we fancied getting ahead of the game and leaving the car at Cheddleton Station or thereabouts and getting the train back to the boat at Froghall ready to cruise back on Saturday or Sunday.

Turned out they were having a special Gin weekend, and were running trains regularly from Friday afternoon right through to late Friday night (as well as the rest of the Bank Holiday weekend).

The local advertising proved a little dubious, as cider was off, dear… this year they were having separate Gin and Cider Events but someone mistakenly ordered the same posters as last year! We did catch them unloading some of the  40 or so Gins though, but were a bit early for the bar to open.

At the end of the platform, we could see them coaling up their steam engine ready for service later that weekend. Mind you it must be easier filling the tender with a JCB than a shovel! Thought this diesel had rather a cheeky smile, too.

Peering into the workshop, a friendly chap offered to show us around and take us out to the yard beyond to wander about, which was much appreciated.

We renewed our acquaintance with Hotspur (last seen on our maiden boat trip), clearly undergoing some heavy maintenance, and made the acquaintance of George, the workshop’s resident pheasant. Just a little way down the road/canal/river/rail-track (they’re all together here) was an country estate where they raise pheasants in large numbers as shotgun targets; George had obviously decided being regularly fed by an engineering shed manager rather than a gamekeeper was probably a good career move.

As we waited for our train “home” to Froghall, one of us became entranced by these two lovelies, who were also waiting for the train. Fortunately, it came before someone had decided to go in for puppy-knapping.

We enjoyed the journey back, and just doing it one way in the afternoon seemed a waste, so after a quick trip back to the boat to unload stuff and partake of a quick meal, we headed back to Froghall station, where the gin palace was now well and truly open. Then did the return journey to Cheddleton and back just for the hell of it. Madam was very taken with the Rhubarb & Ginger Edinburgh Gin… something for the Christmas list perhaps!

And so to bed!

After a pleasant Thursday doing not much at Westport Lakes, on Friday morning we’d planned to head off up the Caldon Canal to remind ourselves of why it was such a bad idea in a shiny boat like the newly prettified Song & Dance. However, doing the pre-flight checks, a significant problem in the drive shaft neck of the woods was spotted…

Quite how this was missed yesterday by the engineers during the launch is open to speculation. Photos were taken on the mobile, and driven over to Piper Boats, who expressed a suitable degree of embarrassment.

Leaving the car with them and hitching a lift back with the engineer sent to fix matters, and dodging torrential thunderstorms, by the time everything was sorted it was a bit late to head off. And so on Saturday morning we headed back initially to Festival Park… only half a mile, but we were pointing in the wrong direction. By the time we’d trekked the couple of miles up to the winding hole at Harecastle Tunnel then come back again, it was late morning when we reached the delights of Festival Park.

And by the time we’d been up to the out-of-town shopping area, got lost in B&Q, dodged some more heavy rain showers by ducking into a Pizza Hut for lunch (shock, horror), made a significant raid on Morrisons, then carried the spoils back to the boat, it was bit late to be starting out up the Caldon Canal – the first decent places to moor are some way up – and the weather still looked fairly rubbish. So we went to the cinema instead – just a few hundred yards from the boat – for an early evening showing of Atomic Blonde, which garnered rather mixed reviews but proved a suitably enjoyable mindless diversion for a damp Saturday early evening. We’re getting nowhere very fast here!