Just before we moor up for the winter we cruised to Stone so that Duffy could be spayed. As this is major surgery we wanted to stay in Stone for her convalescence period so ended up here for 14 days. Luckily there are some good 14 day moorings at Stone and, as we have reported several times through the pages of this Blog, the town is one of our favourite spots on the network. So, apart from Duffy's operation stopping here for 2 weeks was no hardship.
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| Post-op pup |
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| Look at the stupid collar they made me wear! |
Our stay coincided with some excellent weather and the Stone Food and Drink Festival. Duffy underwent the procedure on 22 September and was under the weather for a couple of days after but soon began her recovery to Duffy normality. We had to keep her quiet - fat chance of that - mainly due to her stitches and to give her insides the opportunity to heal. Being restrained on her lead and forbidden from running around, Duffy became very frustrated and rather naughty. So once she has the all clear from the vet we shall embark on some retraining and exercise.
Stone was buzzing throughout the week leading up to the festival over the weekend 30 September - 02 October. The towpath moorings were full most of the time and the town was full of visitors. Any boats passing through the town's locks had big audiences! All the pubs and restaurants were running special offers and the farmers' market was bigger than ever with all manner of fresh produce on offer.
The Canal Cruising Company - the original canal boat hire company - held an open day on Saturday so we went along to take a peek. It was a little bizarre that none of the staff seemed to realise there was an open day so we were left to show ourselves around. The wharf and yard date from the beginnings of the Trent & Mersey Canal meaning some of the buildings are some 200 years old. Sadly a large part of the original wharf is now a car park but enough of the original structure remains to give an impression of what it was like in the heyday of the canal.
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| Dry dock - roof supported by iron pillars |
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| Only remaining wharf crane |
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| Open air dry dock with brick dry dock in rear |
We visited the festival on Sunday and have to say we thought the entrance fee was rather steep at £6 per adult. There were plenty of stalls offering food, fresh produce and local wines and beers - not much in the way of tastings, though. Local celebrity chefs demonstrated their culinary expertise although the one I sat in, Simon Smith (no, never heard of him, either!) was rather chaotic and the video production team let him down by poor camera work.
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| Sampling some black tea at the food festival |
Sue stayed to watch a couple of other demonstrations. I did sample some Titanic Brewery beer which was very refreshing and strangely relaxing at the same time! Overall the festival was not a bad day out but we would probably not go again.
And so Duffy's stitches came out Monday morning and we departed Stone to begin our cruise to winter moorings at Mercia Marina, Willington. The sun came out to play again so we moored up between Bridges 85 and 84 outside Sandon. Relaxed and on the move again.
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