Sean stayed overnight here in Stone on the Sunday, so that we could make an early start the following day. All went well and we were up and out the house by 6.50am on a beautiful sunny morning. We blasted down the M6 and M6 Toll to get to pick up Laplander at Newbold and were on the boat within an hour of setting off.
Usually it takes a couple of hours to start Laplander from cold, but Terry Yatess compressor helped the process enormously, and it was about 9.45am when we finally chuffed out the boatyard and on to the Northern Oxford canal in a northerly direction. The day was lovely, though with a chilly breeze and we happily sailed onwards through All Oaks wood, Ansty and Hawkesbury junction. Here Sean purchased a couple of pints of bitter in plastic tumblers, to help see us through! Basically travelling with a steamer means that you are either going or you are not! There is no stopping and starting, or even having a rest: boilers just dont work like that. So we plugged away at the day. Most folks were delighted to see us, asking erudite and not so erudite questions about Laplander. Eventually we reached the planned stopping point of the Anchor at Hartshill. But it was early, so we decided to keep going to Atherstone Top. At Atherstone Top we were still relatively early: the locks were full and it was quiet, so we plugged on to the Kings Head at lock 5, finally stopping there. Not much of an atmosphere, but good food and cheap (£4.95 for a good quality Steak pie.) We were fairly exhausted and retired early Ian Cardinal "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. " Sir Winston Churchill
