The Wombles of Bridgewater as we cruise through Lymm

Thelwall to Dunham Park, Altrincham, Bridgewater Canal, 5.5 miles 0 locks

Well I am gobsmacked about this canal, why I have not been here during the time I have been a continuous cruiser I don’t know.  It is one of the nicest canals on the whole system from what I am seeing at the moment.  Look at this Womble…

‘The Water Womble’, and it is too!  The crew were scooping up rubbish as they went along.. I don’t think BW has a Womble on it’s system.  The Bridgewater Canal is not overseen by British Waterways as it is owned by the Manchester Ship Canal people.  They sure do look after it well.

So I helped out today clearing this lot up…

I was away for one of the towpath tidy weeks earlier in March when BW rope in volunteers to tidy the paths.. so this week it is my turn to do a bit.. having said that, there is very little to do at the moment!

We got to Lymm just before lunch and I took a wander mainly to get some fresh vegetables.. been struggling of late trying to find greengrocers along the way or even small supermarkets that sell any.  Lymm is a fantastic little town, the cobbled streets have a variety of shops, butchers, bakers Post Office, well just about everything really.. except a greengrocer!  The only ‘supermarket’ was a Spar, but knowing those they do not keep veg usually.. Luckily they did on this occasion having been refitted out of late, maybe they are trying to do better for the townsfolk!

There are plenty of moorings on both sides of the canal here.. the main town is on the offside, mooring there gave me a slightly shorter walk.

The Bridgewater Canal is wide and very deep, in fact in some boating guides it suggests wearing life jackets for non swimmers.  We found out how deep when we were warned by a passing cyclist about a sunken boat just marked by a couple of ‘buoys’.. clear as this canal is, we could see the boat on the bottom completely submerged as we gently passed by..

Being very wide has it’s problems too, the canal for most part is along an embankment, almost since we joined it we have been higher than the land on one side or the other, it reminds me of the Shroppie with wonderful views across the Cheshire countryside.. the problems are putting in stop planks in case there is a breach anywhere.. these are stored near bridges to make things a bit easier to place them in the canal to stop waterflow..

At each site there is one of these wonderful little crane things.  The planks would be put into the water one on top of the other.  The only thing I wondered was whether there were enough here piled one on top of the other for the depth of this canal.  Maybe there are places where it is purposely not quite so deep to allow the planks to do their job.

We have moored close to Dunham Park this evening. Owned by the National Trust there is plenty of walking to be done through the woodlands where I’d hopefully see fallow deer.. I’ll take a look tomorrow depending on whether we are staying or cruising.. not decided yet, I’ll see what the weather is going to do first.

Timing is everything as we cruise the Bridgewater Canal

Dutton Hall to Thelwall, T&M and Bridgewater Canals, 10 miles 1 lock

The timing was perfect this morning.  We were about a mile and half away from the southern portal of Preston Brook Tunnel..

Arriving here at exactly 11am.. we can only go through between on the hour and ten past.  Just before this is Dutton Stop lock with a rise of just a couple of inches if that.  Now we will have a lazy time, because we are in the longest ‘pound’ (a stretch of water between two locks) in the UK.  It will be almost 40 miles until we see another lock!

After the tunnel and joining the Bridgewater Canal we called in Claymore’s Hire boat base for all the services today.. with both water and diesel tanks full, rubbish and loo tanks empty and a quick stop at Midland Chandlers for a new chimney inner, we veered right, the left branch to Runcorn looked inviting..

The best day of the year for us, the wind now round in the South and the sun on our backs as we travelled north made things that much better.

It has been a long time since I had been on the Bridgewater Canal, it is now so very well kept unlike when I visited last time all those years ago.  Towpaths are without mud, hedgerows tidy and the suburban housing well cared for.  For sure they have not turned their backs on this canal.

Lucy and Meg have enjoyed the towpath, taking no notice of a dog lying outside Thorne Marine at London Road Bridge in Stockton Heath.  A handy water point here by the way.

This used to be the end of the Bridgewater Canal in the late 1770’s and here there were wharfs and stables as well as warehouses and canal companies. It would be later that the Duke of Bridgewater would complete his canal to Manchester.

After clearing the build up areas we found an ideal mooring, a little bit of open countryside at Thelwall not far from Lynn..

I really, really enjoyed today, gosh it has been a long awkward winter this year.. I think one of the most enjoyable things was first thing this morning when I walked Lucy and Meg before we set off.. a swarm of mossies attacked me on the towpath!! Hey, spring is really here!

Nearing the end of the Trent & Mersey Canal..

Acton Bridge to Dutton Hall, Trent & Mersey Canal, 1.25 miles 0 locks

The sheep escaped last night.  If it isn’t bad enough for the farmer who’s field of winter wheat, which was opposite No Problem this weekend, is slowly disappearing.  He has trouble with seagulls.  I noticed a flock of them eating the wheat, then in the afternoons moving to a new patch leaving a brown tell tale circle where they had chomped the corn.

But it was when I let Lucy and Meg out last night I heard them baa-ing away.. by this morning though they had gone, the farmer must have been out early!

We been a bit unlucky here close to Runcorn on the Mersey estuary, no sunshine but plenty of wind, almost gale force from the north, so we moved a couple of bridges to Bartington where, thanks to Traveline, we caught a bus into Northwich for a bit of a wander.. a pint and pie went down well too for lunch..

There is a huge long line of Black Prince boats moored along the towpath at the bridge on the British Waterways Bartington permanent moorings.. wonder if they pay?

Yet another fabulous mooring tonight overlooking the River Weaver towards Dutton Locks.. you can see how cloudy it is today!

I hope I have made the right decision not to go to East Anglia this summer via The River Nene.. late the other evening, it was almost dark, an Alvechurch hire boat from Anderton came past us faster than any boat has ever come past in 8 years.. absolutely flat out.  Didn’t pull the pins out as I had a spring on the stern (two ropes, one facing forward one back), but put us on the bank almost. 

I phoned the boat company straight away, got the answerphone, but never had a call back to apologise or anything which I was quite surprised about.  I suggested they caught up with the lager drinking crew to slow them down.  They didn’t even make the next bend with their headlamp on, smashing into the side of the stone edged canal..

Oh well, at least there can’t possibly be a faster boat come past this summer… well there better not be, decisions are made for a ‘canal cruising’ summer!

Wonderful mooring overlooking the River Weaver

Moored near Aston Bridge, Trent & Mersey Canal

Blogger.com have decided to kick out people like me who host their blog themselves..

“FTP publishing will no longer be available after 01 May 2010
You currently have blogs that are published using FTP. You must migrate your blogs to a new custom domain URL or a blogspot URL.”

Oh no I won’t thankyou very much.  I suppose I am of the old school, I like to be in control and have my files on MY server not on Google’s.  There is no change for all of you that use blogspot, just people like me.  Google want to keep everyones files on their servers.

It would never happen, but a scenario, if someone blew Google up then everyones blog on blogspot would blow up too, never to be retrieved.. so don’t forget to backup your blog posts once in a while!

Anyway, I have taken this opportunity to move to Wordpress.  I rather like Wordpress, it is going to be much easier for me to publish blogs.  I won’t bore you with the whys.

On another note.. it’s all happening.. The lovely haloscan commenting system that I have been using for quite a number of years has been bought out by another company called Echo, I hate it!

I have designed the template now on Wordpress, I doubt you will see much difference between what you are seeing now, I decided not to go for something different, I have grown rather fond of what I have..

OK, so it will mean a change of url, bookmark, news feed etc, but it will be worth it I promise you, and I will be much happier doing my blogs.

I’ll try and change it all over this weekend, watch this space!

The two tunnels at Barnton, and oh, those mushrooms!

Anderton to Acton Bridge, Trent & Mersey Canal, 2.75 miles 0 locks

The first tunnel was easy, although the turn into it was rather tight for No Problem, it was when we entered the second of the two short tunnels around Barnton, there was another boat already in the tunnel!

A narrow width tunnel, room for only one boat to go through.. backing off there was a bit of a wind which pinned me to the bank, but there was not enough room between the tunnel entrance and a large tree/bush behind me along with an undredged edge..  It was difficult for the boat in the tunnel to emerge, but he was patient with me while I tried to move out of the way.  It is a bit of a dogleg into that one you see.. I committed myself to the tunnel in the hope that late in the day I would be the only skipper on the move!

It was very quiet around the Anderton Lift area..

This lift takes boats from the Trent & Mersey Canal to the River Weaver below, something we had done not too long ago at the end of May last year, with some fantastic pictures from our great friend Les aboard Valerie..

I bet Geoff of Seyella has a picture of the mushrooms on his blog tonight, not looked yet have been feet up all evening watching the tele,.. he took great joy in getting his camera out as I packed 4.5Kg of mushrooms into carrier bags ready to catch the bus to Tesco in Northwich.  My online grocery order the other day had been a disaster.. a bad internet connection made it difficult to shop online this time, and I wanted 10 mushrooms.. fine, except I put ‘10’ in the wrong box, and got 10 times 50gms box of mushrooms!

I thought there was rather a lot of bags as Mr Tesco passed my shopping through the window into the galley.. but I didn’t check until he had gone.. “If you can get them back to the store we will refund for you”.. phew!  If only mushroom jam tasted good I wouldn’t have worried!

Most of our day was wasted by me and a certain bus company who provide a service to and from Tesco from Anderton every couple of hours, except on the return journey they decided to cancel the bus… grrrrrrr.  Glad I had a bit of local knowledge and managed in the end to get myself back.

If I do it wrong again with Mr Tesco, I ain’t gonna tell anyone!

OK, OK the mushrooms.....

Thanks Geoff…

“They’d had a Tesco delivery at the water point, and there’s an amusing tale relating to mushrooms, but you’ll have to go to Sue’s Blog to read about it…”

Can’t keep anything quiet on the Internet!  I’ll tell you about the mushrooms later, suffice to say anyone for a year’s supply of mushroom soup!!?

Shortest cruise day ever as we try to leave Anderton!

Anderton to Anderton, Trent & Mersey Canal, 0.2 miles 0 locks!

Only two short tunnels today, and I wasn’t worried as my trip through Harcastle last month went really well, my confidence is really so much better now in the dark tubes..

It took three trains and two buses to get us back to the marina, all of them on time, so connections went smoothly.  Lucy and Meg are very streetwise and behaved impeccably throughout making it so easy for us.

Using the services that are now repaired at Anderton we took the opportunity to order Mr Tesco to come and replenish the fridge and larder before cruising off intending to do a few miles today towards Preston Brook and the Bridgewater Canal..  but …

Just as we went through the first bridge I spied Geoff and Mags mooring up Seyella on the 24 hour moorings.. “That will do for today” “OK” said Vic..

No pics in the camera yet.. well I didn’t expect such a short cruise, no doubt back aboard now after a week away there will be some tomorrow as we attempt to break free of Anderton!

A day in the life of.. and Lillie is good and bad

Moored Denmead, Hampshire

Lillie has been the focus of the day,  a very important part of daily life in this family here in the south.. she isn't here tonight.. And no, Lillie is neither a dog nor a child, Lillie is the family car that I am using! The centre of all that goes on around here.

I don't have a car living as a continuous cruiser on the boat.  Some do though like Andrew Denny who, unlike me, has to work and needs his 'Lillie', mooring Granny Buttons in one place then finding a bus or train to go back to a previous mooring to fetch his car back to the boat to be able to go to work.

I had thought that while I was away from the boat and minding the two grandchildren and two dogs for my eldest daughter Wendie while she went skiing with hubby Dan, I could do the school run, take four dogs for a walk straight down the garden, over the field and into the forest, get back, have breakfast.. update the Nene Guide, complete the move to the new server which will host this blog on Wordpress rather than Blogger (OK don't panic.. not yet!), plan the cruise to Liverpool in April and then put my feet up until the evening school run.... Wrong!

Oh, I caught them, by the way.... Wends and Dan,

On the webcam in the bar at Courchevel in France !

I had gone to the small town some 15 minutes away to drop off Kiera to the secondary school, then back to drop off Niamh (pro. Neeve) to the primary school in this village, can't do it the other way round as Kiera starts some 20 mins earlier.. home then for breakfast - not! Lillie conked out not 100 yards as I turned for home.

It was quite scary actually, the engine cut, power steering non operative, glide to a halt trying to get in the side somewhere.. I was in a 30mph limit area and behaving.. what if I was on the motorway at 70+.  I walked back home grrrrr..

Phoning the trusty family mechanic "I'll be there in 30 mins".. Wrong!.. More like 5 hours later!

Mechanic guy gave me a lift back to Lillie and she fired up... am I a dumb blonde.. what had I done to make her fail, now she wants to work! "What do you want to do? Shall I tow it back to the garage?"   I was pondering thinking of my school run.. one to pick up at 3.20 and the other at 6pm as Kiera was rehearsing for a production of Bugsy Malone.. As I pondered Lillie conked out again and wouldn't restart.. "Ah there is a problem" said the trusty mechanic.

I waved goodbye as she was towed away..

The two girls are tucked up in bed tonight.. we got them home in various ways.. I have planned tomorrow with buses and shanks pony for the school runs, I'll only rely on me not Lillie.. not heard anything from her, but at least she didn't stop in the middle of nowhere this morning so I am grateful for that..

I expect that I have made some of you readers smile at some stage reading this.. for sure 'tis different from me, but that's life, or just a day of it!.. Hey, I am smiling too you know!

The school run is hectic, but I did it!

South of England, not onboard No Problem at the moment

It was a bit hectic this morning on the school run. It’s OK for all those Mums who have been doing it all year, they know exactly where to park and drop off, and there is me trying to dodge cars and people with a couple of kids in the back saying “There grandma, stop there!”

Yeah fine, but I only got in this car this morning, and hey these cars have all mod cons which need to be remembered.. drop the clutch to turn it on, and it isn't even a key as I used to know, just a piece of plastic which you push in to the ignition, nothing to turn!

Oh and the handbrake, that is also push button.. “Put your foot on the brake and press the button”.. Oh what! But then I did all that, and even then looked around between the seats for the handbrake lever!

I'm down south at the moment looking after granddaughters Kiera and Niamh,  Mum and Dad have gone skiing AGAIN..

Mind you last night Wends felt so guilty about leaving the little ones it took a lot of effort on my part to persuade her to pack.  They deserve some time away, they work like trojans and look after their family leaving me unworried and proud..

I have to get the lunch boxes correct in the morning, I was going to do them tonight, but it will be better fresh..

A bit of a different blog for you to read, I suppose this is part of my life,  and not a mention of a narrowboat... well almost not!

You know who your friends are at Middlewich...

Middlewich to Billinge Green Flash, 4 miles 1 lock

We waited all morning for Geoff and Mags with Seyella who were moored some way behind us.. well there was a wide lock ahead, the two boats would have fitted in side by side.  Then by went a BW working boat, and not long after Seyella.. I quickly pulled the pins to follow Geoff down to the locks, but……. “We’re going down with the working boat!”… “Oh what!! We been waiting all morning for you!”.. Shaking my fist in the air, I bantered such words as “bugg*r off then”,”we know who are friends are!”.. and here is the proof.. the pair of them in the lock..

Sheesh!

But before that, we said our fond farewells to our travelling companions of the last three weeks or so…

Chas and Ann, and little Molly aboard Moore2Life.  We often travel together first meeting in ice, would you believe, at Banbury in 2003…  It is noted in Chas’ book which he has published online here..

“Got to know Vic & Sue on No Problem. Sue had gone off and found an Internet Cafe and set up a quiz about the Canal on her web site. Turned out that she knows a lot about the network and has designed her own web site for her business. Sue encouraged me get on the net. ‘Car Phone Warehouse’ provided the phone and lead and after a considerable learning curve and by the end of the week we were on line.”

Gosh that seems so long ago now!

Oh and Andrew Denny’s observations when we met a couple of weeks ago….

No Problem and Moore 2 Life are a cute pair; although unrelated they seem to travel as a caravan (in the traditional sense, of a group of people journeying together), and often even share dinners - especially Sunday roasts - together.  

I never thought of it as travelling as a ‘caravan’ perhaps we should be selling pegs and bits of heather or something, but it is nice sometimes to have company during the winter months when the evenings draw in so early.

We caught up with Geoff and Mags at one of the flashes or wide waters which are in evidence along this part of the canal.. due to subsidence of the banks the water has flowed into the fields making huge lakes..

Its was awful, the sun was shining on the windows… I would HAVE to do them today.  But not before a peace offering of Mags’ fabulous home made ginger cake and the usual cuppa aboard Seyella… Ah, that made up for before.. all forgiven now..