Maintenance & Security

While we’ve been stuck here in Chester Roger has been doing a few bits of boat maintenance, catching up on all the little jobs that should be done regularly but are always put off till later.  One of them was to remove the water pump and strip it down to clean the filters.  We hadn’t really noticed any problems with the water flow but once he’d cleaned the build up of  “plaque” off the filter the difference in flow has been quite amazing.  It was an easy job to do and only took about half an hour.

I’ve been asked a couple of times recently about the wire security rope we made to stop the yobs?/drunks?/junkies? setting us loose in the middle of the night.  We bought 4m of plastic coated wire and fasteners from B&Q and made up a loop at each end as shown in the photo.  The loop on the roof is fastened to the centre mooring ring with a padlock so even when they untied the bow and stern ropes we were still safely attached to the mooring ring. It was easy to make up and cost about £10 which I thought was well worth it for the peace of mind and a good nights sleep.

Lock update

It's been a nice day here in Chester, bright and sunny but with a bitter twist. It only managed to get up to 3' and a brisk pace was needed to keep warm when we went out for a walk.
We went back up to Greenfield Lock to check on the progress.  Arriving at 3.45 the workmen had disappeared but we could see the progress they've made. The new lock gates have now been fitted and the paddle gear is back in place. The pointing looks to be almost finished too, so hopefully the lock will re-open on schedule and set us free.

Although Chester Council are superb at cleaning the streets and towpath of rubbish there's always a lot of it floating in the canal and every morning we have a bag full of polystyrene food containers, drinks cartons and bottles trapped up against the boat. We've started picking it out of the water and taking it to the nearest litter bin but I fear we're fighting a losing battle. Today it filled a black bin bag rather than the usual carrier bag.

Lock maintenance progress

The weather for the past few days has been pretty grotty as we've had more gales and rain. Today it was sunny and fairly calm so we decided to go and check on the progress of the works at the locks.

At Tarvin Lock they've put stop planks in to lower the water level in the pound up to Greenfield Lock. You can now see the culvert below the lock paddles. When the paddles are raised the water rushes down the 'hole' and into the lock to fill it.

At Greenfield Lock the BW guys were working away.

2 men were fitting the bottom gates while another was pointing the brickwork on the lock walls.

The hole you can see in the lock side in the photo below is where the water comes into the lock from the culvert above. The water flow can be very fierce if you don't raise the paddles slowly.

If you remember, on our trip into Chester before the stoppages I had to prune branches from a tree which was quite low over the canal so that we could get through.  It's now been chopped down and this is all that's left.  Some of the logs have been stacked up to 'season' ready for use as firewood.

In the other direction, the works to Northgate Staircase Locks aren't progressing very well. I spoke to one of the BW guys who told me that the works are behind schedule due to problems they've been having with hired-in plant and machinery. He did say, however, that they're hoping to make up the delay and hopefully still finish on time.

These shoes were all recovered from the locks. I suppose it makes a change from shopping trolleys and bikes.

A fantastic Sunday Lunch

We collected our car today and went over to visit our friend Dave who's just moved out of Tattenhall Marina and into Aquduct Marina at Church Minshall. On the way back we stopped at the Badger Inn in Church Minshall for Sunday lunch.  We last visited this pub about 6 years ago but didn't stay long as it was a dump with miserable grumpy staff.  It was refurbished last year and re-opened in August and I must say that the lunch was fantastic. Very rare roast beef with huge crispy Yorkshire pud, roast potatoes and 4 veg for £10.95  The beef was so tender you didn't need a knife and looking around the restaurant all the other meals we saw were being demolished with gusto which bodes well for the rest of the menu. I just wish it was beside the canal in which case it would definitely become a regular stopping place for us.

Roman Chester

It's been a a beautiful day today, blue skies and sunshine, so we went for a walk around Chester's wall.  Just off the main ring road is a quiet oasis in the form of the Roman Garden with it's gorgeous mosaic and it's Roman remains.

Oh and it's squirrels too.

There's obviously no water shortage round here as the walkways beside the River Dee have recently been under water.

We'll be in Chester for a while

Because of the gales we were unable to move out of Chester before the stoppages at both the staircase locks and Greenfield lock, so we'll be here until the beginning of February. It's times like this when you find out just how good friends can be. Bargee Bill, who we met back in December and who is the skipper of the restaurant boat at the Mill Hotel, has been wonderful. He took Roger to get coal yesterday and let us fill up with water at the hotel last night, while the restaurant boat was out on a trip.

Life's certainly never dull living on the boat!

Chester - again

We were woken at 6am by the gale force winds howling and rocking the boat. It didn't last long and when we finally got up at 9.00 it was fairly calm and sunny so we set off back down the locks towards Chester,chasing a rainbow for about half an hour.

By the time we got to the third lock the wind had got up again and at one point it was so strong it was difficult to keep the boat from going sideways down the cut. Thank heavens for the bow-thruster. We don't use it very often but it certainly came in handy today.  As we came out of Tarvin Lock there was a tree hanging low over the water. It hadn't blown completely over but some of the branches were too low for us to get through without scratching the paintwork, so while Roger carefully inched the boat forward I stood on the gas locker and used the secateurs to "prune" the tree. It didn't take long but made a huge difference.  Up until that point we hadn't heard about the gales battering the rest of the country and I think all in all, we got off very lightly round here.

The last lock is at Hoole Lane and below it the canal was covered in rubbish bags, plastic sheets, floating polystyrene and a plastic pumpkin. All the bags were from B & M Home Store so I assume one of their rubbish bins had been blown over by the wind.  Once I got the gates open, Roger gave the engine a good blast and then cut the power to coast past the rubbish and avoid getting all sorts of crap round the propeller. The photo only shows about half of the floating rubbish.

We're now safely moored in Chester and have been and raided Tesco's to re-stock the fridge. The shelves and fridges seemed quite bare after the holidays but they had everything we needed to last us a week or so.

Back to Tattenhall

With all the Christmas shopping finished, we cruised back to Tatenhall today. We're moored outside the marina on the 48hr moorings but will move onto the visitor moorings in the marina tomorrow for a week. This is so that we can safely leave the boat while we go off visiting family and friends again. Also we'll plug into the electric so I can leave the TV recorder box on while we're away.

While we were in Chester we met the skipper of the restaurant boat "L' Eau -T Cuisine" who boaters may know as Bargee Bill, the inventer of Bargee Bill's Prop Cleaner. He's a real character and invited us to join him and his wife at the Mill Hotel last night for a bite to eat and for the Jazz Night. The bar (which has a good selection of real ales and excellent bar food) was packed and the group who play there every Monday were very good.  I think we'll have to go back in the new year for another visit.

Back to Chester

When we got up this morning the weather was awful; heavy hail which was freezing onto the pontoons and paths, but by 10.00 it had stopped and was brightening up a treat. We moved over to the service pontoon and did a pump-out (£12.50) and filled up with diesel (£0.86 / £1.36 a litre - any split) and then headed off back to Chester.  It was cold and and we had a couple of light showers, but as they say "there's no wrong weather, just wrong clothes" so with thermals and waterproof snow-boarding clothes on we were both nice and toasty. I drove for the first couple of hours while Roger stayed inside and played his guitar and then we had a nice easy trip down the locks.  We passed a few other moving boats and then met the restaurant boat at Chemistry Lock. It was good to be back on the move. I get really fed up staying in a marina.

Chester is very busy with Christmas shoppers and we also saw several stag parties setting off for their nights out. One group of about 20 were dressed as penguins, unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me but they looked very comical.

Chester

We've been back in Chester since Wednesday, Christmas shopping and seeing our son.  The weather's been pretty good but we do seem to be lucky in that respect as other blogs I've been reading are talking about rotten, dismal weather but we've had mostly sunny days and it's lovely and bright again today.

The only problem we've had here was on Thursday night when we were woken at 1.45 by a knocking on the side of the boat. It was David from the boat behind telling us someone had untied us. When he'd looked out of his window he'd seen our stern end a couple of feet out into the canal and had just managed to grab the stern rope before it went into the water. They'd untied the bow rope as well but had left it through the mooring ring so the bow was still in against the towpath.  Last night we had the centre rope on as well and stuck a padlock through it so no-one could untie us again. It hasn't put us off Chester and although we're heading off today to Ellesmere Port we'll still moor here when we return next week.

Chester

Chester has to be one off my favourite cities. The moorings aren’t particularly quiet as there are lots of passers-by, and we even had a couple of eastern European lads sit on the back deck late last evening to take photographs of themselves. Roger went out to see what was going on, but the lads apologised for disturbing us and complimented us on having a nice boat so we weren’t too bothered.

Chester Cathedral

Today we’ve been into town for a wander around. I’d forgotten it’s Saturday and the place was rammed with Christmas shoppers. The Christmas market has started so we had a quick look round before going to the indoor market which was much more my style. I stocked up on knitting wool and buttons and, as usual, bought more meat than I’d intended at one of the many excellent butchers stalls.

We had lunch in Bistro Chez Jules which had been recommended to us.  The meal was very good and the place was packed with people queuing to get a table.

There was plenty of street entertainment on offer with many different sets of buskers all around the city. Not all of them were good however, but this young band was pretty exceptional.

We’re settled in for a cosy night in front of the fire as it’s blowing a gale outside.  It’s Roger’s turn to cook tonight, while I watch “Strictly” so I will have had a full day off cooking (and hopefully washing up as well) - Bliss!

Chester

Today we moved on to Chester and moored opposite the Bingo Hall.

I thought this was a really good name for the restaurant boat which was moored outside the Mill Hotel.