Well Chuffed

Highlight of today's boating just had to be meeting steam narrowboat President with butty Kildare on their way to the National Waterways Festival at Burton-on-Trent. On a fairly narrow stretch near Great Haywood, with overhanging trees on one side and moored boats on the other I could see "something big" coming the other way. I'd just about figured that it was a "pair" when a blast from the steam whistle gave the game away. I interpreted that to mean "You can do what you like, but I'm coming through. .  ." (perfectly reasonable in the circumstances) so I pulled over, which allowed me to get this action shot:

Even better, one of crew, presumably a blog reader, looked over and said "Ah! Starcross...good to see you!" which made me feel very honoured. In fact I was so chuffed that I didn't mind waiting an hour in the queue to get through the next lock at Great Haywood.
All the way from Atherstone the canal has followed the West Coast Main Line (although perhaps that should be the other way round given the chronology) and I've enjoyed a constant procession of freight and passenger trains both day and night. The Staffs and Worcester, however, has the considerable disadvantage in that it fairly quickly forsakes the railway for the company of the M6, so before it was too late I stopped at Milford for lunch and a last bout of trainspotting.

Trainspotting at Milford

After that it was off to Penkridge, where I completed the day by finding a BW key (my second) that someone had left at the water point