Market Drayton

At around midday today we arrived at the little town of Market Drayton, the two little ships still in close formation in spite of the five Tyrley Locks that led us down after a long spell on the top summit of the Shropshire Union being very busy with queues of three deep in both directions.

 

Woodseaves Cutting on the Shropshire Union Canal .…

 

…. Looking more like a South American Jungle

 

A landslide

 

Tyrley Top Lock

 

Foxgloves and roots

 

A contented fellow… And so he should be on the canal

 

With such an amount of traffic as this, one could expect that at this time of the day there would be plenty of visitor moorings available in the town. But obviously all the traffic was passing through only as it became more disappointing that nothing was available right the way through the town until we arrived at the water point, where there was barely enough room for just one fifty seven footer, without being accused of tying up on this temporary only mooring.

But it was this or probably nothing and as I was ahead of ‘Roots and Wings’ in ‘Futurest’ I edged past and out into the canal again to see through the next bridge hole if there was anything available further on. If not I could reverse quickly back into the spot before some other eager boater nicked the space for himself. Then ‘Roots and Wings’ could breast up on the outside of me. Not the ideal solution but okay temporarily until someone else moved on.

Luckily there was another space just beyond the bridge and having let Janis know that she had a mooring available beyond the first bridge by means of our very useful walkie-talkie sets, I set off through my bridge and onto the further mooring knowing that she would be okay near the water point.

We were very lucky as no other moorings were free and I needed to visit the local post office to collect some forwarded mail.

When we were in Stafford during the Olympic Torch Ceremony, I somehow lost my phone and having obtained a replacement there, afterwards I had to get my network provider to forward a new SIM. They would only send it to my ‘home’ address so Alex my son had to send it on to a forwarding address. The post office at Market Drayton was it.

The letter was waiting so now all I have to do is set the phone up and still find all my old contacts hopefully.

The rest of the town was dead with all the shops being closed as if it was early closing day. But on buying some gingerbread (‘cows’ in particular if it’s important), because legend has it that this town is the originator of this confection, the lady who served us said that everybody had closed up in order to see the England v France match on the television!

Goodness gracious! What is the World coming to?