Stone to the big smoke - Stoke on Trent

Wednesday 5th September Early this morning at 7.30am we left Stone with some sadness and made our way through the 4 locks. We filled up with water and got some diesel at the boatyard. Then we emptied the toilets (well Dale did). There were another 4 locks at Meaford. At one of the locks I met a nice lady from Rugby and we had such a long chat that Dale was left stuck in the lock wondering when we were going to open the gate. Her fella works at the Euston Marks and Sparks. We carried on to Barlaston, which is a quiet village. We made use of the large Londis store there – we were both hungry so we bought pork pie and home made lemon drizzle cake. When we got back to the boat we had some lunch, then carried on. After another mile there was the last lock before Trentham and at that lock I didn't have to do anything as 4 finnish men on a hire boat were coming the other way and they did everything. I had a little chat with them, they said this was the first time they had been on a narrowboat holiday in England and they said it was very different. They don't have canals in Finland, except one going into Russia. The didn't speak a huge amount of English but we had a nice chat. We remarked on the weather being sunny and that they were lucky and they said "Oh, we know the English weather!" One of them had deliberately not bought a raincoat because he had faith that the weather would be good. Anyway, we carried on through Trentham which looked like a nice town and ended up mooring just before the beginning of the sprawl that is Stoke on Trent overlooking a large nature reserve with horses and foals. It was quite lovely, and a lovely day as well, albeit a bit windy.