Narrowboat Vegvisir

Friday morning and the cusp of half term. We were up fairly promptly with a lot of heavy locks to get through. Stoke Council tries hard to make the canal a green and pleasant space, but there's also a lot of graffiti and a bad reputation still hangs over it. Here's the approach to the first lock of the day, at the Industrial museum and the turning off (on left) to Caldon Canal. Looking forward to revisiting this pretty and interesting canal, but it's currently closed for a complete reline of the canal bed. After that it was lock after lock after lock and no photos got taken until we left Stoke behind and arrived at the small village of Barlaston. What a lovely mooring spot! Unfortunately,  today was also the day that Andrew received the True Boaters Baptism. There was a strong side wind as we were mooring, threatening to push us away from the bank so he hurried and the front line - thrown on that morning from 3 feet away as Alison assiste...

Sunday 22nd, and we were away again. Here's our overnight view: We're not keen on the Trent and Mersey moorings at Kidsgrove, and nowhere to stop before, apart from Church Lawton, due to the number of locks up the Cheshire Hill, as the old boatmen called it. Weather grey but calm and mild so good boating weather. Another lock: water turning rusty as we enter iron country The answer was to go onto the end of the Macclesfield canal and moor there, only pausing at Red Bull services for water, pumpout and rubbish drop. An odd interlude at the canal junction; there was a small film crew. On seeing us, they bounded over and the Talent (unidentified) helped work the lock while proclaiming that Hardings Wood was his very favourite place. Go figure. Alison had woken in the morning feeling like she'd swallowed a thistle and was feeling increasingly out of sorts through the day. After our brush with Celebrity and all those locks, she retired below a...

Today we planned a longish cruise, for us: 4 hours or so to Rode Heath. The weather forecast was improving, but plenty of cloud cover so that we wouldn't roast. We collected a hire boater behind us (lovely Dutch, older, party) and another behind them, while a boat ahead us leapt into action as soon as they spotted boats heading in their direction. So then we were no.2 in a convoy of 4, all the locks set against us.  We climbed the Wheelock Flight and Malkins Bank, 7 locks in all, and paused to have our first play with our washing machine. So we loaded it up and set it off and waited.. lunchtime came and went.. the programme finally finished after 2 1/2 hours! So won't do that again. Rapid wash only going forward. Onwards, and Andrew received an alert from CRT about low water levels ahead. One of the locks we were coming to was closed for a while so that more water could be brought down from further up the hill. On the way, we could see that moored boats were alrea...

Lovely as Church Minshull is, by Tuesday it was time to move on. The taffrail was back in place with its first coat of oil and the weather had perked up, so we moved a whole 2 hours down the line to Middlewich.  An uneventful cruise except for double moored boats close to a bridge which looked quite challenging on approach. Not so bad on arrival though. Picking our mooring spot these days means checking if the sun can get to our solar panels, still an exciting novelty for us and which in summer can keep our batteries charged without the need to run the engine . So we stopped on the edge of town to do some basking.  Andrew's siesta was interrupted when he realised the chandlery, which he wanted to visit, was closed on Wednesdays,  so he hot-footed away with his shopping list. In his absence, Alison was amused by Bad Mamma Swan, who left her babies in the canal to have an away date with Feckless Daddy Swan, in someone's garden pond.  ...

Saturday's concert came to nothing: poor Ralph McTell had to cancel with a scant 2 hours notice, with tragic personal news. The concert will be rescheduled but we don't expect to be anywhere near enough to come along.  Instead we settled in with Eurovision and swapping comments on WhatsApp with Laura. Overall a high standard of entries .. staging and choreography as well as singing .. and the obligatory nutty numbers. One of which was Ukraine and who of course won by virtue of turning up. And UK came 2nd! Storming performance by Sam Ryder. So not the night we were expecting but a good one all the same. Sunday up and at 'em.. showers and refill the tank, dump rubbish etc. A pleasant break catching up with Wendy Jones, and then away by 10.50am (you didn't think we were rushing, did you?). Weather overcast at first, brightening and really quite breezy, as we headed out north for the Middlewich branch.  A lot of boats on the move. Busy at Barbridge o...