Hooky in the Sunshine

It's been another glorious sunny day so we moved to moor at Lyme Green.

It's a good spot if you don't mind the tanoy anouncements and piped music coming from Homebase on the retail park. If you're in need of some retail therapy there's also a Poundstretcher, Pets at Home, Harveys furniture store, PC World, Next & Matalan. On the leisure side there's AMF Bowling and a Burgerking.

My latest crochet blanket is coming along nicely. The pile of squares is growing rapidly.

Originally I edged the squares with a row of grey double crochet but it didn't look right so I've pulled it all back and have ordered some black yarn which I think will look better. I've got another 4 colourways to work through yet. At the moment I'm doing 6 squares in each variation but I haven't worked out how many squares I'll need  in total. I suppose it might be an idea to measure the bed and see how big the blanket will need to be.

We're Free!

We've now left Macclesfield Marina and are free again. Well, as free as we can be for the next 6 months while I continue my chemo sessions in Manchester.

We're now moored on Gurnett Aqueduct and will stay here for the weekend before moving on.

I have to say it's wonderful to be back out on the cut. The evening bird song is lovely, the view is wonderful and even Chico is more relaxed.

I've been doing a lot of crochet while we've been stuck in the marina. I'm making a cardigan for my granddaughter which I'll show you when I finish it tomorrow and I've also made her a teddy.

This is the pattern I used  HERE but if you'd prefer to knit your teddy you can find that pattern HERE

My next project will be another blanket. This is what I've got in mind.

It's from a lovely fellow blogger who I've been following for a couple of years. If you're interested you can read her blog HERE It's also where I found the teddy pattern. I've just bought the yarn for the blanket from an excellent website COUNTRY CRAFTS They're very reasonably priced and the service has been excellent. With the demise of the local wool shop I'm sure more and more of us will have to resort to buying on line. It's not ideal as I prefer to feel the yarn and match the colours by eye but I've used Stylecraft Special DK before so I knew what I was getting.

Back in Manchester

Well we're back in Manchester again!  Apart from the usual 4 or 5 "lurkers" who have been here since last Autumn, Castlefield Basin is fairly empty.

We filled up with water at the service block on the way in.

It used to be a really dirty horrible place, full of boaters rubbish which was dumped here even though there are plenty of rubbish skips just round the corner but I'm happy to say that it's been cleaned up and this notice seems to be having the desired effect.

It's now dark around 5pm and although I miss the sunny evenings of summer, it's nice to sit by the fire and indulge my passion for crochet.  This is the latest little cardigan I've made for my granddaughter. She's now 6 months old and growing so fast she's keeping me busy. The stash of wool under the bed is dwindling rapidly, I feel a shopping trip coming on!

Necessity is the mother of invention - Floods Day 9

The river level continues to rise, will it never end?  It's risen 2ft today and is now up above the second step.

Our neighbours have had enough and have booked into a local B&B, lending us their plank whilst they're away which makes it a bit easier getting off. It's fastened to the old mooring sign in case the level rises further and tries to wash it away. Chico's struggling a bit as he can't walk down the gunwale to the plank and it's too far for him to jump to the bank.  We're having to put him on the roof so he can walk to a point where we can lift him down onto the plank and then off.  He's not a happy bunny I can tell you!

This is the water tap beside the boat. We made sure to fill up before it totally disappears. (in the time it's taken to down-load the photos and write this blog, the tap's been totally covered. That's how fast it's rising!! )

The house opposite must have a flooded cellar as bottom of this door is now 6ins below the surface.

The current is running much faster and there's plenty of flotsam coming down the river.  Large rafts of reeds

and even a tree.  It looks smaller in the photo than real life and would give you a nasty bang if it hit you at this speed.

I'm still making baby shoes but I think she's now got enough so I'll have to find another project to keep me occupied until we can set off on our travels again.  The good thing with these little baby things is that they're using up all my odds and ends of wool.

ladybird shoes

baby 'UGGS'

Day 2 on our island

The rain continued for most of yesterday but by late evening the river level had started to go down a bit and we managed to get down the plank again to take Chico off for a wee.

You can see just how little "dry" land there was left but he enjoyed his walk up and down the thin patch of grass

Just before that photo was taken a group of canoists came past.  Some bravely went down the river weir but these 2 boats took the easy route through the lock

By the time we got up this morning the water level had gone down about 6ins and we now have our own private little island.  In between very heavy down-pours it's been hot and sunny enough to sit out

Chico's enjoyed being able to sunbathe in the grass even though it's still very damp.  He's been paddling but I've kept his harness and lead on in case he gets swept away as the current is very strong.

Even though we've no digital or satellite TV Roger managed to watch the Grand Prix qualifying yesterday and the race today on the Internet.  He used THIS WEBSITE and reckoned it was almost as good as the TV.

I'm not interested in sport of any kind so I've been doing some more hooky.

girly shoes

baby sneakers

The next pair are going to be UGG type boots. Well a baby girl can never have too many booties, can she?

I've been away

Last Monday I decided at very short notice to go to Newcastle to visit our daughter. She's been very ill recently and with a 7 week old baby needed a bit of  "Mummy's TLC".  As we were moored near Lapworth train station it seemed a good idea, so as soon as the Asda man had brought our delivery I caught a train into Birmingham and then another up to Newcastle, leaving Roger and Chico behind on the boat.  It's the first time I've ever travelled anywhere on my own and the journey took 5 hours with the train being absolutely packed. I managed to get a seat but for some people a lot of the journey was standing room only and at Durham there was an announcement asking people to check their luggage as some had been stolen en-route. As the luggage racks had been full when I'd got on the train I'd kept my small case with me squashed between my legs. It made the journey a bit uncomfortable, but how awful must that have been to have your case stolen?

I stayed for 3 nights and the journey home was much less crowded. Our daughter is much better now and the baby is doing well too, putting on lots of weight and hardly ever crying. I had lots of cuddles and hope to get back to see them both, and Dad, soon. The best thing about 10 hours on the train was that I managed to knock up another baby cardigan.

We moved down to Lowsonford yesterday where we paid a visit to the farm shop.  They may have rare breed beef and pork but it was all frozen and VERY expensive.  I bought a dozen free range eggs but when I got them back to the boat they are tiny. I suppose I should have checked before I bought them, I just hope they are good to justify the cost.

There wasn't any Orange phone or 3mobile internet signal in Lowsonford so we decided to carry on today and are now moored at Preston Baggott where we'll stay for a couple of days.

Lapworth

We're now moored at Lapworth but the internet reception isn't good and we're having to take turns for the connection as it's not strong enough to use on wifi.

We came down Knowle Locks on Wednesday. They're wide locks and have to be the hardest paddles I have EVER  done.

This type of paddle gear is usually easy to operate although you do have to do lots and lots of turns to raise the gates, but the these are extremely stiff to work, which I think is simply due to lack of maintenence.

The pounds between the locks are very wide.  Knowle locks used to be single width but in the 1930's depression they were converted to wide locks.  This served 2 purposes, increasing the boat capacity so 2 boats could use the lock at a time and providing much needed employment.

You can still see the old disused single locks beside the newer double ones.

We moored for the night at the Black Boy pub and went in for a pint.  The beer wasn't very good though, far too cold, so we didn't stay long.  The food looked good although we didn't stay to try it. The menu was basic English pub grub with a few specials and the portions were HUGE.

We had torrential rain and hail on Wednesday night and it got so cold that I had to dig the chimey out of storage and light the fire!  The bad weather's carried on ever since and my poor plants on the roof are starting to suffer.

We carried on to Lapworth on Thursday and are staying here for the weekend.  There's not a lot here to be honest, just a small village shop, a wine merchant / post office and a hairdressers. The Navigation pub opposite our mooring was closed for refurbishment but re-opened at 6pm last night so we'll pop in later this evening and have a look.

The towpath here is very overgrown. Last year a friend gave us a battery powered strimmer which we've never used and were just about to dispose of, so we thought we'd charge it up and give it a try.  It's brilliant and we've decided to keep it and maybe use it more often.

In the meantime I've been busy hooking again.  I made these 2 jumpers for my baby granddaughter and I'm just off to the post office now to send them to her.

I hope you all have a good weekend, where-ever you are.  Hopefully we'll get better internet reception when we move again on Monday, see you then.......................

A great week

The Llangollen is getting quite busy in the run up to Easter. There are loads of hire boats going up and down, mostly well driven, however we were rammed by a day boat earlier today.

Last weekend was spent socialising with a group of lovely boaters who had come out of Chirk Marina for an extended weekend jaunt and we made a valiant effort to drink the Poachers Pocket dry. This was followed by a leisurely couple of days cruising back down New Marton locks to fill up with water and a half mile walk down Frankton locks to the refuse skip to dump the rubbish.

We arrived back at the Poachers Pocket this morning, closely followed by Charles and Dolores on "Felonious Mongoose" who we last met when they moored in Macclesfield Marina for a short while a couple of years ago.  They invited us on board for a coffee and we had a good chat, catching up and sharing experiences.

Chico's still having his training sessions with Karen of Beastly Thoughts and it finally looks like we're making progress. Walks are much less stressful although I think it'll be a long time (if ever) till he 's cured and can happily socialise with other dogs. While we were out walking this morning, we met a man with 4 dogs who took great pains to tell me that he was a dog trainer and I was doing it all wrong!  According to him I shouldn't use praise and treats but should yank him hard by the collar every time he barks at another dog and use other aversion/punishment methods. I think I'll stick with Karen's methods thank you!

The weather this week has been absolutely glorious and I've started planting up the troughs on the roof. So far I've filled 2 with violas and have tomatoes, courgettes and strawberries hardening off ready for planting on in a couple of weeks. The local mallards are very tame as they're regularly fed by people eating in the pub garden.  This one sat on the roof for ages watching me doing the planting. I just hope it doesn't fancy tender young plants along with its pub diet of crisps and chips.

One of our expensive SMD (LED) lamps has failed after only 12 months (should last around 30,000 hours) and when Roger took it down to check he found out it was the capacitor that's failed. You may recall that we had problems with failing capacitors in the TV back in January so he ordered the right size replacement and again has effected a repair.  The only draw-back is that the minimum order of these particular capacitors is 100 at a time but at under £3 including delivery and VAT it's not such a hardship.

If anyone needs any SMD's repairing we've got plenty of capacitors going spare, just get in touch.

As it's been such a leisurely week I've been doing quite a lot of crochet, working on my blanket and also making this Happy Flower wall hanging. It's another of Lucy's creations and the instructions are available here.

More Hooky

I’ve been following this blog for a few years. It’s written by Lucy who’s a stay at home Mum and who creates the most amazing crochet items.  I actually taught myself to crochet from one of her tutorials a couple of years ago and have made several of her patterns, including the octagonal baby blanket and several bags.  My latest inspiration came from this tutorial for herb pot covers.  Do you like my version? It's based on an empty 2 litre orange juice carton.

I’ve put aside the flower blanket I told you about recently and have got hooked on making these covers.  They don’t take very long and are a great way of using up all those oddments of wool I have stashed away in the cupboard.

A bit of hooky

I was given this beautiful book of crochet patterns for Christmas and have got "hooked" on one particular pattern.

I loved this blanket so much I decided I HAD to make it. So unfortunately everything else is falling behind, including updating the blog.

We're still stuck in Chester, so I'm making the most of the quiet time before we start travelling again to try and get it finished. I didn't realise just how addicted I'd become, but I suppose that's a good thing since I have to make 71 plain squares and 71 flower squares.

I've made about half of the squares now so I'll show you the photos when it's finished.