Up the Rochdale Nine

We left Castlefield late morning and had a reasonably easy passage up the Rochdale Nine. Our son and his girlfriend have come to stay for the weekend and James helped Roger work the locks which seemed easier than usual.

Katie had a go steering the boat.

Cute mooring mushrooms along the canal.

An "arty" shot of one of the bridges. I still haven't mastered my new camera but I'm having fun playing with it.

The only down-side of the trip was the state of the canal through Canal Street and under Piccadilly. The water was full of discarded condoms and there were rent boys "working" beside lock 85.  The CCTV is obviously not working and if they hadn't moved on when we got into the lock I would have called the police.  I'm not homophobic but this was just disgusting!

Astley Green Colliery Museum

On the way back to Boothstown on Sunday we stopped off in Astley Green for a lovely roast lunch in the Old Boathouse pub, followed by a trip to the Colliery Museum which is only a few hundred yards from the canal.

The pit closed in 1970 but the impressive pit headgear and winding house remain and are maintained by volunteers.

The steam winding gear is absolutely huge and in extremely good condition.

The Lodge was originally the pit manager's offices but now houses an excellent display of mining life.

The museum houses the largest collection of colliery engines in the country and there are hoppers and other railway items scattered around the site.

Some are on view but many are moth-balled, presumably for future restoration.

This wagon looked a bit past it to me, or maybe it's a pending project?

They also had a nice display of vintage cars. The yellow MG in the centre caught my eye.

If you're thinking of visiting the museum, they're only open between 1.30 - 5.00 on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Play Day

I was up quite early yesterday morning and so was this guy flying his microlight.

It was a noisy machine and he kept coming down low over the flash and canal and scared most of the wildfowl away so I gave up trying to watch and photograph anything and settled for coffee and toast and an episode of "Breaking Bad" instead. Have you seen this programme?  Last time he came to visit, my son gave me the past 5 series to catch up on and I have to say I'm hooked! I'm trying to limit myself to 2 episodes a day which I usually watch with my headphones plugged in while Roger plays his guitar or when he's outside fishing.

After lunch we took Chico for a walk around the flash.  There were some beautiful flowers and lots of fruit trees, although the apples aren't ripe enough to pick just yet.

If you're into foraging, there were lots of mushrooms peeping though the bark chippings.  They looked edible but as I'm allergic to mushrooms I wouldn't risk picking them.

This was the view from the other side of the shale pits.

We walked back along the towpath from Platt Bridge. It's locally known as the "yellow brick road" because it's made from imprinted concrete. It's part of the Route 55 cycle way and was very busy. Most of the cyclists slowed down and were friendly and polite, but you always get one lycra lout who thinks he's in the Tour de France!

There were lots of garden gates for Chico to have a sniff and a nosy. He once met a dog at a similar gate and he's never forgotten.

This is the towpath near our mooring.

It conveniently has compass points inlaid in the concrete which could be helpful if you need to set up a satellite dish.

While our evening meal was cooking (greek rabbit stew) I finally managed to set up the telescope which had been one of my birthday presents back in May.  It's amazing!  It can be used for watching wildlife or astronomy and the best thing is that it all packs into it's own backpack. Perfect kit for a boat.

Now that the microlight had gone, the wildfowl were back in abundance. There were swans, several herons standing in a group on the opposite shore, greylag geese, cormorants, great crested grebe, coots etc. etc.

We didn't have a spectacular sunset but the view was pretty good none-the-less

Ince Moss Shale Pit Nature Reserve

We're off cruising for the weekend................

A sudden downpour delayed our departure but it soon brightened up and we headed off towards Plank Lane where we stopped for lunch while we filled up with water.

The traffic wasn't too busy and the bridge opens fairly quickly but it could do with a bit of grease as it squeaks something awful!  

Just past the lift bridge we came across this boat with it's land-based transport attached on the stern.

I've never seen a motorbike decorated with canal art before!

My tomatoes are coming along really well and although they're quite small they taste like "proper" toms, rather than the insipid ones you get in the supermarket. Little mouthfuls of summer!

We'd planned on turning the boat around in the winding hole just past bridge 2B but this proved to be a bit problematical to say the least. The winding hole has a fallen tree in the apex plus it's very shallow and could do with dredging. It's also very shallow on the towpath side and there must have been some rocks under the water which popped the rudder out of the skeg. Luckily there weren't any boats about as it took Roger about 20 minutes to sort things out and repair the rudder.

Eventually we managed to turn the boat and reverse about a 1/4 mile to moor beside Ince Moss Shale Pit Nature Reserve.

It's a lovely spot and has given me plenty of opportunity to play with my new camera while Roger drowns a few maggots. He says the fishing's good and has already caught a few bream & perch.

The zoom is pretty amazing. This is a close up of the little island you can just see in the centre of the photo above.

Boat Modifications

If you remember, a while back we were in dry dock and I mentioned that Roger had done some modifications to the stern gear to make the boat easier for me to handle.  This all came about after we'd helped our friend David up the Rochdale 9 back in April and I'd noticed that his boat was a lot more manoeuvrable than ours and was a lot lighter on the tiller. He'd done some modifications last time he'd been in dry dock so Roger based our mods on what he'd done.

We've now got removable flow plates

and baffles on the rudder.

The difference it's made to the boat handling is quite remarkable. Not only is it a lot lighter to steer but the rudder now self-centres and it's a doddle to reverse in a straight line. A success all round!

We've also gone solar powered. He installed these panels while we were in Castlefield last weekend and of course the sun then disappeared and we had 3 days of rain!

I've only got another week of radiotherapy left and then we'll be FREE!!!!  Continuous cruising here we come. I can't tell you how much we've hated being stuck in one area for the past few months. It's a good job there are so many of you writing blogs out there. It's kept me sane reading them but has also made me quite jealous as most of the boaters I follow have been happily doing everything we'd planned to do this year. Never mind, we'll do it next summer. At least now you've all "been and done it" we'll know all the best mooring places down on the Thames.

Oh, one last thing. Thanks to Paul & Elaine on n.b. Caxton for recommending my new camera. So many bloggers have now bought the Lumix DMC-TZ40 that maybe they should have bought shares in the company. I've now got to learn how to use it which could be a long job as I'm not very techno-savvy.

This is my first attempt at a panoramic shot. It's the view from our side hatch of Bridgewater Marina.

The Crown Crew Reunited

We've had some amazing storms over the past few days and these cygnets had had enough when it poured down again yesterday. They just tucked their heads under their wings and rode it out, carrying on eating weed just as soon as the storm passed.

I used the time to sort out my preserves cupboard and bottled last years cherry brandy. I've hidden these 3 bottles to mature until Christmas but I don't think the remaining half bottle will last until tomorrow let alone Christmas. It looks like we're in for a bumper crop of blackberries this year. All along the Bridgewater Canal the bushes are really well laden. Last year was a disaster and I only just found enough blackberries to make jam for ourselves. Usually I make enough for all the family and friends as well. It should also be a good year for sloes and I've got a few Blackthorn bushes mapped out ready for harvesting at the end of Autumn. Hopefully no-one will beat me to them and I'll be able to make plenty of sloe gin for next year..

The sun was back again today and we had a visit from Jimmy and his wife. We cruised to Astley and went in the Old Boat for an excellent lunch of home-made game pie followed by a leisurely cruise up to Plank Lane to top up with water. It was scorching on the return trip but luckily there was a nice breeze and it was extremely pleasant sitting in the shade in the bow.

Jimmy was our cabinet maker and worked for us for about 8 years while we were building boats. He's profoundly deaf and we haven't seen him since we closed the company. We were amazed just how much sign language we'd remembered and we had a great time catching up.

Friends

This is SO true!  

Having cancer has shown how many false friends we had. The good ones have been amazing and will always be friends. 

Then there are the false friends who only wanted to know us for what they could get out of us but showed their true colours when I told them about my diagnosis.

I know both the good and bad read this blog. Thank you good friends, we couldn't have got through this without you.  To the false friends - you know who you are and just what you can do.......

Enough said