Time to say goodbye

Thursday 23rd October.

Stone to Burston. 3.6 miles and 5 locks.

Sadly our time back in Stone has come to an end. Our new battery arrived yesterday, and Keith immediately fitted it.
Both Keith and I were awake early this morning, possibly through excitement, as we knew today was the day we would be making a move south. So we were up early. I made us porridge for breakfast, a nice warming start to the day, along with a cup of tea. Paddy enjoyed his last walk in Stone for a year. Keith and I had to get some coal ready for two coal deliveries on the way down to Star Lock. After breakfast we popped around to Roger's Boatyard to say our goodbye's to Roger and Tina, who were enjoying their morning coffee, before the days work begins. We also got to say cheerio to Nigel on N.B EnSeaBee and Tina's husband Rob who was working from home. It is always sad to say goodbye, but we will be back next September like bad pennies LOL. Having done the farewell's we dropped off coal from the bow of Hadar to Sharon and Ian on N.B The Mutley Crew and said cheerio for now. It is kind of odd because people have been wishing us a Happy Christmas arghhhhhhh, what a thought, it is not that far away. We then made a delivery to N.B Cedar who are having boat problems and are moored below Newcastle Road lock at Stone Boat Building, whilst there we collected a new gas bottle and said our goodbyes to Kath. We wish the Denny's onboard Cedar well, and hope they will soon be on their way. Already it seemed like we had done a day's work, and we still had the food shopping to do. Luckily we managed to get a mooring on the 12 hour Crown Car Park moorings. It has been full of boats for the last few weeks, all of them over staying their welcome. So having moored up we headed off to Morrison's for a large food shop. The supermarket was packed. I wondered if something was going on that no one had told us about. Still we managed to finally make it through the check out and back to the boat. Before putting the shopping away, we went down through Star Lock to take on some water. Whilst Keith kept an eye on that procedure. I put the shopping away, made us some lunch and a coffee, which we would have on the move. Because we have sold almost all of the coal onboard, Hadar is sitting really high out of the water at the moment, with the gusty winds she is likely to move around a lot on the water, so filling her water tank will certainly help to a degree, as it has been almost three weeks since we filled her up. We were soon on our way to Aston Lock, where we sold another bag of coal to a lovely lad named Martin, we wished him well and set off to our over night mooring at Burston. Having moored up Keith did our canal cruising Log and worked out that so far we have cruised 1058 miles and done 755 locks since we set off in January. It really does not feel that much if I am honest. We are now both so looking forward to seeing Autumn and the Winter in the full. I will certainly be taking lots of photographs. So tomorrow we will be making for Great Haywood and a weekend mooring. See you next week as we head South to pick up coal.