Lymm

GeoTagged, [N53.38184, E2.47741]

We decided to break for the border and leave Manchester. It had stopped raining and was starting to look half decent. 20 minutes from Castlefield and, as the French say " Il pleut comme un vache qui pis" or something like that. We thought about turning back but voted against it. Good job as 20 minutes after that the sun came out. The days weather turned out to be like the curate's egg but overall tolerable. Anyway we found ourself in Lymm on the Bridgewater canal. What a strange place. Quite pretty about the same size as Ripley. Here's the rub though, it has a Spa grocers and a hairdresser which appears to only open at 1030 on a Thursday, and 4 pubs, and 11 restaurants, each one different, and a fish and chip shop and nothing else to speak of. POS and I have just had a most delicious Thai. I spoil her. If it continues to rain we are going to eat our way around the world.

Thinking of you

GeoTagged, [N53.38184, E2.47741]

You know who you are

Battened down

GeoTagged, [N53.47510, E2.25105]

Decided to stay put and wait for the rain to pass or at least ease. Good day for jobs. 3 loads in the local YHA washing machine means we have lots of clean things which is nice not just for us I suspect.

The Rochdale 9 are innocent (NOT)

We did 11 hours cruising today. Yes that's right 11 hours. POS decided she wanted to go through Manchester under the virtual cover of darkness or at least before the yobos and truants (or both) bother to get out of bed. So we left our mooring in Ashton at 0700 hrs this am. Approaching the mooring last night I had a fouled up screw (ooh er missus) and had to get my hand down in the weedhatch to remove various 'things' that had stopped the forward propulsion of Weyward Lady. At this point I could post a photograph of said gubbins but in the interests of all I will decline. Suffice it to say it's not a pleasant task. Anyway our plan today was to do 27 locks, 18 on the Ashton and then turning left on to the famous Rochdale 9 down into Manchester City proper. They have done a lot to rejuvenate the area but I have to say the architecture is a little odd. I thought the packing case style went out in the sixties!

The first 18 were just single locks and just a tad tedious to be honest. The canal itself was pretty dirty and all in all we were glad to get on to the Rochdale, or at least so we thought. The Rochdale 9 have a bit of a reputation for be hard work.

Well let me tell you they are all 10ft drop double locks and complete bas**ards. POS helped me with the first 2 and then was unable to get back on the boat as I locked down Canal Street the gay quarter of Manchester. This photo was the last I saw of her for half an hour.

So POS had to walk the length of Canal Street unaccompanied and I had to do the worst lock I have ever done, and badly, in front of a bar called "Queer City" I was the source of great amusement. POS failed to get propositioned.
To cap it it all it started to rain just as we moored up in the lovely and very trendy Castlefield's Castle Quay. Still at least it waited until we were both quite knac**red so it really didn't matter. Anyway having gone to all that effort to get here we may spend a day sightseeing tomorrow. We will see what the weather brings or what state the aching bodies are in.

Friends Reunited

During our trip we have manged to get together with an old friend of POS, Vicky aka Delphine, well very old actually, not the friend but the fifty odd years they have known each other, plus I was reunited with an old friend, our old boat Water Knight. It's custodians Paul and Ann were coming one way down the Trent and Mersey and we were going the other. So we bumped into each other, luckily not literally! A nostalgic time was had by all! She is in good hands.

The Highs and Lows of Non-Tidal Boating

Yesterday was been a day of highs and lows.

LOW: It started when at 0710  we awoke to pouring rain. Yes, RAIN.

HIGH: However, POS pottered about having tea and feeding Tilly and all was well when I woke for the second time about an hour and a half later. It had stopped raining and the grey sky was starting to break into bits of blue. By 1100 the blue sky and sunshine was complementing the fantastic scenery yet again, setting Cheshire off at its best.

I know amongst some my readers, and you know who you are, there are those that a trip north of the Watford Gap would certainly start nosebleeds!  Well grab a box of Kleenex, keep your held tilted back and go for it!!  Come and see just how beautiful the North is.

HIGH: Later today we arrive at Bugsworth Basin at the end of the Peak Forest Canal. Although the basin is not geographically, and certainly not in mileage, half way, I still feel that Bugsworth Basin has  been the goal of our endeavours and from that point we are on our way home. A big day tomorrow, I feel a glass of champagne may be called for, the first one since leaving Pyrford. I may have to drink POS’s as well.

LOW: Another big disappointment came yesterday when locals and boating guides warned us of aroma emanating from the Swizzle Sweet factory in New Mills on the Peak Forest Canal. You can’t miss it, they say. Can you imagine my disappointment when there was nothing. Surrounded by the smell of Swizzle ‘Lovehearts’ is my idea of heaven. It was Sunday and there was nothing, not even the hint of a Swizzle Fizzer. L

HIGH: The canal at this point is some 500 feet above sea level you feel like you can see Wales to the left and Yorkshire to the right. Marple Junction, at the end of the Macclesfield, is so pretty. Looks like a film set and yet much of it is nearly 200 years old

Here hopefully is a better map of our proposed route over the next week or two

Happy St George's Day

It is most amazing. We have spent the day circumnavigating the most hideous radio/telephone mast construction thingy. It has been on our portside, starboard side, ahead of us and behind us. At one point I swear blind it overtook us. A real blot on the landscape and all the time, needless to say, no Orange. So I have repostioned myself in a pub on the canal about 1 mile from Macclesfield and the Landlord has kindly lent me his laptop (Bombadier 2.70 a pt), So no pictures I am afraid (unless I find some on this that I shouldn't!!)

Happy St George's Day.Today we really have been in England's green and pleasant land. We cannot believe the weather. The sun contiunues to shine. And it is warm. We have  meandered through the beautiful countryside. Farms ,hills and then more farms and more hills. More lambs than you can wave a stick at. Even a farmer waved a cheery wave at us at least I think it was a cheery wave. We did the only locks on the Macclesfield, a flight of twelve, in two and a half hours during which time I also managed to clean the boat while POS was doing locks. Her choice but she is getting very good at it!! We are a great team I say. I am not sure she agrees.

Tomorrow we are going to Macclesfield to try our luck with the bus service to Wilmslow. POS wants to visit Adam's (King and Allen) new shop. So the retail therapy may now take place in Footballers Mall in Wilmslow. Perhaps I will find out why it is called the Cobham of the North. I am sure Macclesfield would have represented much better value :-)  I see financial ruin looming!

Sorry Sorry Sorry…

Sorry Sorry Sorry…

…for not updating the blog. In order to send the written word into the ether I require the world wide web otherwise known as the Internet. That is normally provided by Orange. Except the only orange round here comes in the form of the drink or the colour generated by the many Tanning Studios that have appeared on the High Streets everywhere. I blame it on that Dickinson “it’s a bobby dazzler” fellow from that ‘rag and bone, let’s con some poor OAP out of their family heirlooms’ tv show. Anyway I digress.

Yesterday was one of those ‘shall we turn right or shall we turn left’ days. We went straight on to the Potteries and Stoke on Trent

Today we went through Stoke on Trent and, more interestingly, the Harecastle Tunnel, a tunnel of very nearly 2 miles long with a journey time of about 40 minutes to pass through it. Today was the hottest day so far of our trip. It was like summer. Until we went into the tunnel where it was as cold as a well digger’s bottom. Tilly thought it was night time and went to bed. Pity I couldn’t do the same. 40 minutes staring at ancient brickwork makes one prone to hallucinations.  I kept imagining beer at under £3 a pint

Any way we are through now and onto the Macclesfield Canal (known as the Macky to us ditch-crawlers). What a beautiful canal and we are only a third of the way along it. Tomorrow Macclesfield town and perhaps a bit of retail therapy for POS.

The next map and I apologise for the quality. I will post a better one if I get the chance. From the Macky we go left on to the Peak (having first gone right and then back) the the Ashton, Rochdale, which will take is through the City of Manchester, then on to the Bridgewater southwards and to Wales

A Formal Apology

A couple of years ago POS and I met some people on a narrowboat who had made a vocation of travelling the Inland Waterways of England all 2000 miles of them. There followed the obvious question what was your favourite? The reply was the Macclesfield first the Llangollen second and the Peak third although they were enjoying the River Wey very much. Well today we did a sizeable chunk of the Coventry and it was BEAUTIFUL and I apologise for being unkind about it yesterday. All I can say is those other canals had better be stunning or else! We are presently moored for the night and the view is just like that Windows 'landscape' desktop except without all the silly icons. (Although a recycle bin would be handy)

Down the Plug'ole in Coventry

Today we did a little diversion (nearly 2 hours each way) into the City of Coventry known as the Basin, their description not mine. Bit like selling KFC in a ‘bucket’ Strange choice of word although maybe not in KFC’s case!! The canal was very dirty and the journey would have not been worth the effort if it weren’t for the visits to the old and new cathedrals and the Church of the Holy Trinity next door. If that weren’t enough, that was followed (without POS who had returned to the boat) by a trip to the Coventry Motor Heritage museum. The birthplace of my LGC and they had a TR2 on show which was nearly as nice as mine that is assuming my kids haven’t destroyed it whilst I have been away. I foolishly left the keys in the ignition. Hey-ho it’s only a car I keep telling myself !!

POS rang me while I was there to tell me that a number of drunks had turned up at the boat and were trying to stare her out. Quite what she wanted me to do about it I am not quite sure especially as I was approaching Mach-1 in the Thrust 2 simulator at the time. Anyhow I got back to the boat and they dispersed. That round to POS I think.

What a fantastic sky today, empty of vapour trails and just a gorgeous blue with a few puffy clouds. A ‘Simpson’ sky as POS calls it. Whilst admiring the sunset I received a call from a friend of mine who was at New Haw on his boat and who commented on the crescent moon and very bright Venus below it. What was amazing is that I could see a moon and Venus in Coventry, How coincidental is that?

Some of you are still not quite sure what we are doing and where we are going. We are not sure what we are doing but we are fairly certain we know where we are going. So for the purposes of this part of the journey I attach a map. We came onto the map at the bottom at Banbury and we leave the map at Stoke on Trent at the top left ( at which point I will post a continuation map). I hope this helps.

Having just showered Tilly after she rolled in something rather unpleasant, which covers most things found on the towpath, we are planning our trip  towards Stoke on Trent tomorrow, a trip which should take about 5 days. Picked up a couple of POS's friends from Coventry Basin to lend a hand with the locks !

Old Engine Oil

Yesterday I was so so thirsty that I decided I would drink anything offered and the only thing offered was a pint of Old Engine Oil. And I drank it!! And it was delicious!! And it was chocolaty! And it was velvety!! And it was as black as that well known Irish/Nigerian Lager. So I drank another pint.

May I recommend that if by any chance the same opportunity becomes available to you, then seize it with both arms (or at least one arm) and enjoy. Just make sure it was brewed by Harviestoun.

Didn’t make Coventry Basin today. Just got too cold at five o’clock to keep going. So we stopped at Hawkesbury Junction at the end of the North Oxford Canal just before we turn on to the Coventry Canal bound for Stoke on Trent. Gosh doesn’t it all sound a long long way from home.

Funnily enough as we are moored by a pub, a pint of Old Hooky or Nooky or whatever it is called, seems to be on the wine menu tonight. Already enjoyed a couple of pints of this recently so I hope I will not be disappointed.

This blog could easily turn into an ad for CAMRA (CAMpaign for Real Ale for any of our foreign readers) if I let it. But that would necessitate sampling great quantities of strange sounding brews and that wouldn’t please POS one bit. Could be fun though!!

Decisions, Decisions and Piracy on the High Seas

For the first time today we actually came to a crossroads (or should it be crosscanals?) and we had to make a decision as to whether we should turn left or right. Obviously from the picture ,straight on was not an option!

Thank God for TomTom and we correctly turned left towards Rugby. Where would we be without today’s technology? Well you would be reading this rubbish on a postcard for a start. 

Yesterday we were invaded by a Somalian pirate and a Space Traveller. We had no option but to pay the ransom demand and hand over the ship to the Dastardly Duo and their fiendish leader Toby the Terrible. They generously allowed us to stay on board but only on the condition we provide them with victuals  and generally be at beck and call pandering to their every need. It was great!! 

However with a bit of cunning and a bit of bribery we regained control and then after  a full lifeboat drill a bit of further training in things nautical.....

.......they were soon pulling ropes and working locks. We were sorry to see them go L

Tomorrow Rugby and then into the Coventry Basin. Onward and Upwards !!

POS to First Mate?

I am thinking that POS may have to have a promotion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc1cdpWZQKM

I tried to explain that doing the locks was MUCH easier and that steering the boat was REALLY difficult but she wouldn't have any of it!!

A Great Big Kisser!!

Thirty nine years ago on Easter Saturday 1971 POS and I spliced the mainbrace. As a memento of this occasion I contacted the US Air Force at Upper Heyford and arranged for them to do a massive vapour trail kiss for PSO from me for 39 very happy years

The Sky Above Upper Heyford 1500hrs 10th April 2010

I would so much like that to be true but alas it cannot be true on 2 counts:

1)In 1994,once Gaddafi had become the bestest of best mates to the whole world especially the US, the US had no need for the air base at Upper Heyford so they packed up and went home.

2) I could never be that romantic!

Kingfiisher Count

1 pub
2 Boats
2 Bottles of lager(although I wasn't well sighted and they may have been the Greater Spotted Cobra. Trevor?)
10 Birds including 2 by their nest just below Wallingford Bridge

FANTASTIC

Turning the boat round

I know this sounds like a euphomism for "paying a visit" but in this instance I was actually turning the boat round when I lost it, the boat that is. I was parking when the stream got me and took me sideways downstream at some considerable pace towards a gap less than 60ft, the length of Weyward Lady. I had visions of being the new milleneum bridge for the Thames at Abingdon while I waited a few days for the current to subside. As it happens the gap was 60 and a half feet and I went through as if it was quite deliberate and I did it everyday. I don't mind telling you that I was very very lucky and whatever it was I shouldn't have done I won't do it again. Somebody was smiling on me. Waitrose in the morning before we make our way to Oxford. I have promised POS afternoon tea in Oxford on Saturday our 39th wedding anniversary (Happy Anniversary Niick & Linda as well) but we may be there a day early

Using Gmail to comment on this diatribe

I am sorry for those of you who are mad, bad (as in Michael Jackson type Bad)or sad that you feel the need to comment on this Blog rubbish that you have to have a Google Mail account in order to do so. I would like to say, however, that Gmail is FREE and excellent with NO SPAM and a facility to forward any emails from your gmail account to another account which means you never even have to check it. A Gmail account also allows you to store your photos in Picassa (i.e. on the web) for the eventual day when that hard drive, that you store all thos precious photos on,does fail. If you don’t already have an accountYou could chose a special moniker to reflect a hidden side of your personality such as The_Phantom_Rasberry_Blower_of_Old_London_Town@googlemail.co.uk except you can’t have that one because I have already got it!!

The sun'll come out Tomorrow Bet your bottom dollar That tomorrow There'll be sun

It’s official the sun has got its hat on hip hip hip hooray, the sun has got its hat and it’s coming out tomorrow

Nobody has asked me about my “gizmo”. Well let me tell you, dear reader, that it has nearly been 100% successful. It’s just a shame that the little lever that secures the umbrella handle into the tube has dropped off. Today, for the first time since starting our journey it actually rained (only a few spots but enough for trialing purpooses) as we were going along so I thought what a great time to test it. I opened the umbrella and placed it in the tube. Unfortunately with no clip to secure it, the first breath of wind launched the umbrella into the sky (á la Mary Poppins). Once airborne it then flew through the sky (á la Those Magnificent men in their Flying Machines) until it nosedived into the Thames (á la Hunt for Red October) never to be seen again!!


Simon, if you are sad enough to be reading this drivel then I apologise but I will be unable to spread the word, around northern parts of England, of your excellent brokerage house buy means of umbrella advertising. Luckily I still have a Trenchard and Arlidge umbrella to lose but I think we will require some reverse engineering before I attempt another test run.

Mooring in Goring tonight and meeting up with Number 2 son’s girlfriends parents. Might have to eat using a serviette tonight! We probably won't be chosing lamb

Red Boards still but at least some are changing to yellow, however....

 still

Upstream and Downstream boards at the same lock. Guess which way we are going!

Busy Going Nowhere Isn't it Just a Crime?

Oh dear
Red Boards!!
Limped from Staines to Windsor encountering some very choppy water and very strong currents. Still there are worst places than Windsor to get marooned. I am surprised Her Madge wasn't along the towpath waving us in. I would have done the same for her!! Still we are here now and the sun is shining albeit the temperature a tad cold. A whole leg of lamb in the oven should mean we won't starve for a couple of days. How many different ways can you have cooked lamb? Answers on a postcard.. Still it's Bank Holiday tomorrow so that should keep POS out of the expensive shops that seem to proliferate in Windsor High Street. Why do I doubt that last line?

Off We Jolly Go

The day started at 0500 this morning. I would like to say we were woken by the excitement of our forthcoming trip. I would like to say that but the truth is the sound of rain thrashing against the window was the overwhelming factor to our early start. Undaunted we left the marina just after 9. Within a half an hour the sun was out and we were on our way (and no rain for the rest of the day). Amazing! We haveGood Luck messages as we leave the marina and Post delivered direct from a overhead bridge plus countless texts wishing us Bon Voyage. What a memorable day
Saw our first kingfisher at 1.00pm. Ok so it was a pub by Chertsey bridge but one shouldn't be picky. Moored just upstream of Saint Aines in time to watch the Boatrace, get beaten at Scrabble, watch the new Doctor Who and listen to Tony Hancock. The end of a purfick day ( apart from losing at Scrabble).
Hopefully tomorrow night we should be in Marlow but the river is running everso everso fast and going upstream is hard work and painfully slow. The sooner we get on the canals the better. Fingers crossed we don't get "red boarded " tomorrow and get stuck here.

36 Hours and Counting

Lists, list, and more lists. Things we have to remember. We have so many lists that I am now creating lists for the lists. Quite honestly the sooner we set sail the better. If we forget the teabags I am sure we will find somewhere where we can buy some more. Waitrose isn't the sole agent for groceries as far as I am aware! The whole thing feels more like an expedition to the darkest and uncharted waters of the Amazon than a wander round the drifting spires of Oxford and on. Let's just hope there is no similarity especially the weather.
Talking of Amazon and  the weather I bought myself off the tinternet, a little gizmo into which I can clip an umbrella. It fits on the tiller and cost £4.50 inc postage. I cannot believe it will work for one moment and even if it does, at that price it will break in two moments. Still it's only going to rain at night for the next 12 weeks isn't it!!
Just to throw a bit of interest into the agenda there are flood warnings for the Lower Thames. I would be really fed up (and that is an understatement and censored) if we can't get out of the marina on Saturday. I guess we'll be alright though,