Barlaston

After a few days basking in the sunshine at the top end of Stone, we toodled up the canal to the village of Barlaston. Pulling in, we moored outside The Plume of Feathers. Exploding out of the stern gate, as he tends to do when we stop, Leo made a beeline for the tables on the pub car park. They were packed with people enjoying a sunny easter holiday weekend. Soon both Leo and Tiger lucked out, finding a middle aged woman with dog treats she 'needed to get rid of'!. Naturally every time the dogs stepped outside from then on, they were drawn to the tables. After a few days we shuffled a hundred metres or so up the towpath to stop them scrounging; the little tykes.

Will ate lunch at The Plume of Feathers and discovered it had been run by Niel Morrisey from Men Behaving Badly. It was less than a fortnight since he'd relinquished the lease in order to find somewhere he could own. The pub had shut for a few days to remove all the Morrisey memorabilia. It seemed he'd been a good landlord because whenever we passed there were always people drinking.

On Wednesday morning Vicky met her Dad and Sarah outside the OneStop and hitched a ride back up to Rowlands Gill for some blood tests. It was so much nicer to travel with them as opposed to taking the train. Thanks folks!

She returned on Good Friday. The train from Derby to Stoke was packed with rowdy football fans. Sarah had once again made sure she had a packed lunch- falafels, crudites and a hummus dip. The gobbiest of the fans standing near her table picked up on this and wanted to know what she was eating. She prepared for an onslaught of bird seed and lettuce 'jokes'. They asked whether she was a potter, which she later discovered was a nickname for Stoke City fans and she said no, she was a boater, at which the gobby guy got really animated, saying he had a neighbour who had a boat and that he loved watching Canal Boat Diaries with Robbie Cumming, as well as Countryfile! What a turnaround 😂Läs mer