A Great Day with Special Friends.

Sunday 14th June 2026 in Stoke-on-Trent.

Today we had arranged to meet up with April and Mark, (a lovely couple whom we met at the Crick Boat Show), and to take them out for the day on MM. With perfect timing, they arrived as we were filling up with water by M&S in Stone. The first lock was Star Lock and, as experienced narrowboaters,  they volunteered to go and set the lock for us. 

Not long after, we passed a narrowboat called "Idle Women" - obviously a nod to the Idle Women books about the young women who skippered loaded working boats during WW2..

We had a very "good road" through the four Stone locks and the four Meaford locks and made excellent time particularly with the help of April and Mark, who were quite happy to climb ladders and work gates and paddles.

After Meaford Locks, April had a turn on the tiller. They said that when they are cruising, April tends to do the locks and Mark normally steers. At the locks, April had been reminding Mark how to do the locks and now Mark had the opportunity to remind April how to steer. Either way, they both did an excellent job!

George and Debbie (M's sister's sister-in-law) live only a few hundred yards from the canal just north of Barlaston and they walked down to join us for tea and cake aboard MM.

After tea, we continued on for a while with George steering enthusiastically. We think that he would happily have stayed for much longer but he suddenly realised that they would have to walk back to where they started! And having had a knee replacement fairly recently, discretion was the better part of valour!!!.

Before they left, we had the obligatory photograph in front of MM.

We continued on with April and Mark to the centre of Stoke-on-Trent, where we dropped them off just by the railway station so that they could catch a train back to Stone. It really was a great day to share with special friends.They really were super company.

We continued on through two more locks to a very quiet mooring opposite the city cemetery.

Beside our mooring there used to be a massive pottery works: it is now a housing estate but these two bottle kilns still survive. We call them Jack & Jill and we have moored here many times over the years.

Today: 9 Miles, 11 Locks and 5.1 Hours.

Trip: 158 Miles, 101 Locks and 75.1 Hours.