A snail could go faster!

 My fault! If I hadn't had a slight meltdown over trying to ice my cake and overdoing the amount of mix for my cheeses cake, we would all have left earlier and then not encountered the slowest boats ever!

What happened was this.

Sunday I had made a Coffee and Walnut sponge cake. Taking it out of the oven, instead of a nice uniform level cake it came out more like a wedge  proof that we were listing ever so slightly to Port! (I thought as much because standing on the gunnel of the Port side, I always felt more unsecure than on the starboard side) Anyway that in itself wasn't too much of an issue, no it was on the Monday morning VERY early (6 am) when I attempted to spread butter icing between the layers. Like a mud slide both cakes just slid off one another and I had even put wedge side to high side to try and level them off! In the end and after much swearing, placing a layer of tin foil underneath did the trick. Next came the cheese cake for dessert that night. I miscalculated how much filling to make and ended up with twice the amount needed. Another bout of swearing because now it meant I had another cheese cake base to do just so it wasn't wasted! A message came from the McDonald's asking if we were ready to leave. Groan...I hadn't even had my shower so the answer was no. To cut a long story short, Marilyn came over with Magnesium tablets to ease stress. Well I was insistent that I wasn't stressed and then promptly burst into tears!  Many hugs from Marilyn helped immensely and soon after it was all systems go as we eventually set off.

So these slow boats!!! Not 2 minutes after pulling pins and going through the first bridge we encountered them pulling off their mooring ahead of us. Turns out they were travelling together. Time was now 9 am.

Suck the tummy in and stick those boobs out girl! Next Miss World perhaps?

Plenty of boats held up by that pair

At 12.30 pm we arrived at Great Hayward. Three and a half hours it took us to do 5 miles, what a complete joke!!!! It was painful, at tickover all the way we were beginning to lose the will to live. Thankfully at Colwick Lock I found out they would be stopping at Shugborough. Oh the relief of being able to put the power on after we had gone past! 

 Anyway after Haywood lock we stopped for lunch. Chairs came out, Cheese Scones were brought out by Marilyn followed by my Coffee and Walnut wedge cake. Strange sort of lunch but oh so welcome. 

The facilities next to the junction was our next stop. Unfortunately the water point was out of action so  still no showers for the McDonalds. They carried on to find a good mooring while we stopped to buy oil from Anglo Welsh. By 3 pm we spied them by bridge 81 waiting for us to arrive. Marilyn on tender hooks because they had been worried that the last remaining mooring would be taken, was very happy when we finally arrived. Marilyn now showed her strong side by heaving on the centre rope to bring us in, it was windy and that was Ian's excuse for the poor job he did of mooring up! Her work was not completed though because where we had stopped nettles grew in abundance. Out came the shears and manicured that bit of towpath where we would step off the stern. Brilliant job and saved our bare legs from being stung,

 

Mexican train was played on FS after dinner. I think they quite enjoyed the game, never having played it before. Marilyn won so she would!!!😀

Their need for water was getting a bit desperate so the plan was to leave at 6 am. Not us though...that's a silly time these days, no we will wave them off in the morning as they sail quietly (are you listening girl!) by.