Day 10 – Friday 7^th September. What a lovely place Stone is. It has a wealth of shops and eateries but has managed not to become a typical High Street filled with the major retailers and banks. Many of the shops are independents and the place has the feel of a market town. Having said that, it’s not behind the times. I managed to get some excellent advice about mobile Wi-Fi and how to get connected on the go and ended up purchasing a T-Mobile dongle which should work wherever we are. Not that this means the blog will be kept up to date – I still have to write it, plug in the dongle, upload the pictures – a lot of work after a hard day pottering about on the canals!



Picture of La Dolce Wita.

Today we travelled about four miles but had seven locks to negotiate. At one of the locks a Hotel Boat came through, the motor section towing the Butty.

Looked quite tempting to jump ship and let someone else do all the work. Much of the morning we spent wandering around Stone and in the afternoon we visited the Wedgwood factory which is close to where we are moored. Walking up from the canal we were directed across the grounds of the factory whilst cars had to drive all around the outside. Consequently, our entrance was through the back of the building down a long corridor, past the loos and into the back of the shop.

Once you got out of the shop and walked toward the car park you found an impressive entrance with directions to the museum, the restaurant, etc. We visited the museum (almost at a third of the price as it was past 4 o’clock and they close at 5) and were fascinated by the volume and value of the ceramics on display. There were many audio/visual displays which we had to rush past but we could have spent a couple of hours in there. It is because of the original Wedgwood industry that the canal was built. It’s great fun that we can take the time to visit places and see things that we’ve always sailed past. Many times we have read about a place and said that we should have stopped off – well, this time we’re doing just that.