Freedom At Last!

My chemotherapy has been done at The Christie Hospital in Didsbury which is why we stayed in Portland Basin Marina at Duckinfield for so long. I've now completed that part of my treatment and the next stage is radiotherapy at Salford Royal Hospital so we're moving.... finally....YAY!!!!

We set off yesterday (Saturday) accompanied by our son and his girlfriend who were helping us down the 27 locks into Manchester. The sun beat down and we had a really good trip, only seeing two other moving boats all day.

After about 4 or 5 locks we met these 3 kids swimming in the lock. They were no problem, getting out of the water to help open the gates. I gave them the usual lecture about Weil's Disease and the general dangers of swimming in the canal and especially locks but they couldn't care less. They were young and having a ball and one of them was doing a great job of fishing debris out of the water and bye-wash.

Those of you who know me probably wouldn't recognise me away from the boat. In weather like this I'd usually be in shorts and strappy tops rather than all covered up and hiding under a hat, but needs must......

I was surprised how many tiny ducklings were bobbing about. We must have seen half a dozen separate broods. It must be the good weather stimulating second or even third matings.

The Ashton Canal goes right past both the Velodrome and Manchester City Football Club. Football fans will recognise these old signs. The roads don't exist any longer, due to major redevelopment in the area.

I was going to take photos of the new metro station and football stadium beside this lock, but we had a "major incident" which took almost half an hour to sort out. Three boys were messing in the bye-wash and when we pulled into the lock it was obvious they were in a bit of a state. Two of them had fallen and badly cut themselves and had decided to clean up in the canal water!  So out came the antiseptic and plasters and I cleaned them up. It took almost a full packet of plaster to sort them out. One had a broken toe but there wasn't much I could do about that. They were extremely polite and grateful and we sent them off home to tell their parents what had happened, again with a warning about the dirty water and possible infections. It seemed a bit strange how grateful they were for the first aid but I understood why when one of the kids said his mother wouldn't care and he was in for a battering!

Just after this lock is the lowest bridge on the Ashton Canal.

We crept slowly through it with a couple of inches to spare.

You can tell when you reach the end of the Ashton Canal when the high rise flats start springing up. You can see the balconies in the centre of the tower.

Most were occupied so we had plenty of spectators as we went down the last lock.

As on previous trips, we moored in Piccadilly Basin. This is good secure moorings in a gated community but as we know the gate entry combination we went out into Manchester for a few beers to cool down.

We're out of dry dock

We spent two weeks in the dry dock. Roger applied three coats of blacking which had plenty of time to cure before the boat went back in the water. It never ceases to amaze me how many boaters spend lots of time and money blacking their boats and then launch them too soon. It clearly states on the tin that you should leave it to cure for a minimum of 2 days before it goes back in the water. And then they wonder why it doesn't seem to last very long..........

He also did some modifications to the stern gear to make the steering lighter and more responsive, which will make it easier for me to manage until I get my strength back. We haven't had chance to test it out much yet but first impressions are good. By the time we get down to Manchester in a couple of weeks I'll be able to tell you if it worked and go into more details about the alterations he made.

While I did very little apart from reading and playing hundreds of games of Solitaire Roger did lots of painting,  making good the battle scars we accumulated over the winter and the boat looks almost new again. Shame it won't last, especially with me driving through the locks.

It only takes 15 minutes to re-fill the dock and then we were pulled out.  Well actually we got stuck! The canal water level was about 6 inches lower than normal and we had a devil of a job getting out over the cill.

We're still here at Portland Basin Marina and will be staying for another week or so. There are hundreds of fish here, some are really quite big. It doesn't seem right to try and catch them so Roger is waiting till we get back out on the mainline before he does any fishing.

Yesterday we were invited out to lunch with some old friends. We met Sue and Vinnie who live in Macclesfield Marina along with Helga who used to live there a couple of years ago. It was Sue's birthday and we had a great time, finally being asked to leave at closing time. I hadn't realised the Boar's Head at Higher Poynton still closed in the afternoon, but it was probably a good job it does as otherwise we would still have been there at tea time as we had so much catching up to do.

Dry Dock

We're still here at Portland Basin Marina and today we moved into the dry dock. Normally we share the work blacking the boat between us by taking a side each, but this time Roger will be doing all the work. We'll be in the dock for two weeks so there's no rush and the work will fit in around my hospital visits.

This is the dock, it's covered and enclosed on two sides.

We were pulled in backwards by hand as using the engine to reverse in would have dragged in a load of mud and rubbish which ends up on the floor of the dock. This way very little flotsam found its way into the dock.

Once we were in position over the trestles the gravity drain was opened and the water emptied out in about 15 minutes.

While the final dregs of water were draining out, Roger started using the high pressure power washer to blast  all the loose blacking and other crap off the hull.

It's so long since we did any cruising that we had an underwater garden growing on the hull. 

The power washer quickly got rid of any weed and loose blacking and we were pleased to see that there is very little pitting in the steel plate.

Health and Safety is a big thing here at Portland Basin Marina and our walkway is extremely sturdy. Ever since we got stuck in the floods last year Chico's been very wary of walking down planks but he was quite happy walking on this. In fact he liked it so much I had to put the gate up to stop him wandering off to find Roger.

The planters have been taken off the roof so it can be painted and in the meantime we've lined them up alongside the dock. The tomatoes are growing well and have lots of flowers on them. Providing the slugs don't get to them while they're on the floor we should have a good crop this year. That's one major benefit of having a roof garden; the only pests we have problems with are caterpillars.

Vintage Cars

Portland Basin Museum is only a few hundred yards from where we're currently moored and today they had an exhibition of vintage cars.

Gardening Done

When we lived in the house I never bothered much with the garden. As long as the grass was cut and the perennial bushes were tidy that was enough for me. It's different here on the boat though and I really enjoy our roof garden. I know it's not very big but I always manage to grow plenty of cherry tomatoes.  This year, as well as the 3 trailing tomato plants, I've also potted up marigolds for instant colour and geraniums and lobelia which should flower in about a month. I planted the herbs and lavender when we first moved onto the boat and are still growing well 3 years later.

Roger screws the planters together in pairs which serves two purposes. Firstly they are more stable and don't blow over in strong winds and secondly they are more difficult to steal.  This had happened to a boat we met at Marple the other week. We bought the bedding plants and tomatoes from Asda. They have some really good deals on at the moment and all these plants only cost £16.

Baking Day

I thought I'd better post a blog just to prove I'm still alive and kicking.

We're still moored in Portland Basin Marina and the sun's been shining all day. I haven't got anything interesting to write about but thought I'd share a photo of today's baking session.

We'll have the barm cakes with home-made burgers tomorrow. If the sun's still shining we might even break out the BBQ.

Portland Basin

It's been a while since I've written my blog. The last dose of chemo really hit me hard so we've not done much cruising. We spent 10 days in Bugsworth Basin and bumped into quite a few friends while we were there. At one point two boats we'd built turned up, Asphodel and Dawn Owl, and it was nice catching up with their owners.

We spent the Bank Holiday weekend at Lyme Green and then made our way up the Macc. again, back to Maple where we spent a very wet and windy night before coming down the locks on Friday morning. I drove and Roger worked the locks. The rain was quite heavy at times but even in the miserable weather it's one of my favourite flights of locks. It's just so pretty.

We passed three boats coming up the locks. They were helped by three volunteer lockies which was a good thing as the pounds between the last 4 locks were very low.

Before we descended lock 2 I let Chico off for a wee but he slipped as he jumped to get back on board and fell in. Lock 2 leaks so much that by the time I'd grabbed his harness and yanked him out the level had dropped by more than a foot.  He spent the rest of the journey huddled under his towel.

We're now moored at Portland Basin Marina and will be here for a few weeks as Roger has a couple of jobs to do in the area. As usual, we were made extremely welcome by "the Management". We've known Guy and Sandra for years, he's a Boat Safety Scheme examiner and she runs the chandlery etc.