Tixall Wide

Moored at Tixall Wide on the Staffs & Worcester Canal just after Great Heywood where we left the Trent & Mersey. We previously moored here in August last year on our way back from our Pennine trip. Despite its familiarity it remains a favourite spot. The canal has been transformed into an attractive reed edged lake. Whether this is due to mining subsidence, pre-existing marshy land, or a "special favour" for the local landowner, I dont know.

Rewind the clock a bit to yesterday. We were annoyed to find late in the afternoon that our radio aerial had ben snapped. It was certainly OK when we moored up in Rugeley a couple of hours earlier, and I had been on the boat all the time and hadnt noticed anything unusual. A mystery really as there was no sign of the aeral having been bent, just a clean snap. I guess it was a bit of random vandalism, though a beat policeman we met later on the towpath said that the area was safe.

We left Rugeley at 9:30 this morning after a leisurely breakfast and pottered slowly up to the locks at Colwich and Great Heywood. The area was rather busier than I had expected for this time in the season. Our journey was somewhat delayed by four or five canoes full of very young children who were being directed by instructors on the bank. We had to wait until they were safely alongside the bank and had disembarked - 15 ton narrowboats and small canoes dont mix well.