Market Drayton.

Keith and I spent a lovely afternoon walking around Market Drayton, even though most of the time it was raining. Wednesday and Saturday is market day, so we got to see their market which is large. Unfortunately due to the weather, I think the stall holders had very little in the way of buyers, so were packing up early.

Market Drayton has a very long history, which includes the grat fire, which destroyed almost 70% of the town in 1651. The town also has a Gingerbread making history. There used to be four bakeries making Gingerbread.

There are some very pretty buildings dating back to Tudor, Georgian and Victorian times (I think that's the right date order). In all Market Drayton is a lovely town, but like many others it is suffering in the present climate. Talking of the present climate, we noticed a large presence of PCSO's and police officers on duty, we presume this is due to the violent riots taking over other towns and cities at the moment.

Before heading back to the boat we had a coffee in the Buttercross Tearoom, which has recently been taken over by a new couple. They have retained the traditional English tea room downstairs, while creating a more contemporary coffee shop upstairs, which was where we were directed to, because the downstairs was full up. We sat upstairs for 10 minutes with no one coming to take our order, so I went downstairs to see if there was any room for us, which thankfully there was, so we gathered our belongings and sat in the window. Well I never we got served immediately. I seriously think they had forgotten they had sent up upstairs, which is not very good. The staff did seem a bit all over the place, but I guess they will improve with practice (I hope). Coffee drunk and paid for we walked back to our boat, with a howling gale blowing up. We stopped to chat to Tina and Colin on NB Go For It, before battening down the hatches to shut the wind and the pine needles off the Scotch Pine near the boat coming in. The TV signal here is a little hit and miss again, we only have ITV1, Channel4 and 5, plus four other channels on freeview we do not watch, so it could be another DVD night, because Keith bought "Cloverfield" from a charity shop.

So we have had a lovely day in all, dinner is now on the go and I will be putting my feet up later on.

Chat soon xx