It was minus 2 degrees Celsius when we got up on Thursday 15th April 2021.
We did a family walk to do shopping in the SPAR at Great Haywood. It looks a very quaint little town with lots of heritage buildings and bridges.
We set off through the first lock, encountering a queue and incompetent holiday boaters for the second time in two days. There were some nice lock-side cottages.
We trundled through Rugeley which had a lot of long term moored boats and some strange back gardens.
All a bit Wicker Man!
Finally got a picture of a heron, but not cute ducklings.
There were some bent arm locks and ghostly high speed trains rushed passed us on the railway.
We stopped for lunch at Armitage in the shadow of a huge factory. This is the home of the company that became Armitage Shanks which was founded in 1817, by Thomas Bond in Armitage, Staffordshire.
The Armitage "sanitary pottery manufacture" became a successful toilet manufacturer in the United Kingdom. In 1907, Armitage Ware Limited was incorporated. Under the management of Edward Johns in the 19th Century this global manufacturer gave rise to the American phrase “Going to the john”.
In 1969, Armitage merged with Shanks Holdings Limited, a competing "sanitary engineering company" established at Barrhead near Glasgow, Renfrewshire, in 1878, producing the famous brand name Armitage Shanks. They now trade successfully as public limited company called Ideal Standard.
Just along from our mooring at Fradley Junction we found The Swan pub and had our first drink in a pub this year (thank you COVID-19).
The pub seemed popular with locals and born-again mid-life crisis bikers. There was also a gaggle of riders from a scooter club that arrived there.
Interesting to see that God's own beer - Timmy Taylors - is being exported out of The County. Hope this is not another cynical attempt by the big brewers to steal the 'brand' and move production to Northampton. Us Yorkshiremen get a bit fed up with that.
Mule.