We're on the move again

Bless me dear reader, for I have sinned......it's been a month since my last confession blog............

Well to be honest, we haven't really done anything that was worth writing about and I'd hate to bore you.

We've spent January pootling up and down the Macclesfield Canal between Marple and Macclesfield and have met up with several old friends who are based on this stretch of canal. We've not been this way for a few years so it was nice to catch up and revisit old haunts.

It's been a busy end of the month with visits to family over in Manchester as well as having our children come to visit on the boat to celebrate our daughter's birthday as well as Rogers BIG birthday. I'm not saying how old he is but this is the birthday cake our daughter made for him.

She also made him this shirt. She runs a small business making bespoke children's clothes so this was a bit of a change for her. It took quite a few covert messages between us to get the measurements right but Roger was delighted with it.

Once all the socialising was complete we set off on our travels again and came down Bosley Locks yesterday.

Our friend Adele came to give us a hand. She usually single-hands her boat and said it was a nice change to be able to work the locks without having to see to her own boat as well. We certainly appreciated the help and made it down the 12 locks in an hour and a half.

The locks are closing for planned maintenance next Monday and the work boats are already there ready to get started.

We've done this lock flight many many times before but I've never seen the water level so high. Towpaths were flooded

and the by-washes were struggling to cope

These were sights more commonly seen on the Rochdale Canal than the Macc

We moored overnight on the deserted visitor moorings below the locks and carried on again this morning. We haven't seen any other moving boats for days.

This isn't the usual kind of cow you expect to see on a dairy farm............

Our mooring for tonight is another of our favourites, Congleton Aqueduct.  It's a bit windy here but the view is good......well it would be if it wasn't raining and cloudy. Yet again the moorings are deserted. Where are all the boats?

That's all folks
Take care and I'll see you again soon

Happy New Year

Dear Reader, I'd like to wish you a very Happy New Year.
May 2016 bring you happiness and good health.

We spent New Years Eve in the Navigation Inn at Bugsworth. It was absolutely packed with boaters as almost 20 boats arrived on Wednesday and Thursday. There were several boats from New Mills and Furness Vale Marinas and a convoy of about 12  "old boats" arrived during the day and filled the main basin, along with the local coal boat "Alton".

The pub put on a really good night with an amazing band that had a very diverse repertoire and played everything from Abba to Zeplin. They also put on pie and peas at around 1.30 but we passed on that, although Pat said they were very tasty and with all the dancing she'd done over the evening she'd earned them.

We finally got home just after 2 am after enjoying one of the best nights we've had for years, mainly due to the company of Pat & Phil from n.b.Arcturus. Pat sure can dance!  If you're a Facebook friend you'll also have seen our video of her on the air guitar.

Friends Martin & Maggie came to stay on New Years Day and we finally said goodbye to Pat & Phil and Bugsworth Basin on Saturday. I doubt we'll be back this way again for a couple of years.

For all my doggy loving/owning readers here's a reminder of the new law coming into effect in April.

If you're the owner of a rescue dog like us please make sure you've changed the chip registration details to show you're the new guardian.

Merry Christmas

Welcome back, I hope you had as good a Christmas where you are as we've had here on the boat.

poster made by my gorgeous grandchildren

We arrived in Bugsworth Basin on Christmas Eve and were surprised by how deserted it is. 

Christmas Day saw us following our usual traditions and after preparing the veggies and squeezing the turkey into the oven we adjourned to The Navigation Inn for a couple of beers. The Christmas Kiss ale was on perfect form.

Someone asked me the other day where we were going for our Christmas dinner "as you can't cook a decent meal on a boat" ?????

Wanna bet? 

The turkey was the smallest one I could find and at 4kg just fit in the oven

The dinner was great and for once I didn't burn anything due to excess alcohol. I reckon we'll still be eating the remains of the bird for a while but I always enjoy the leftovers more than the actual roast. Well who doesn't like a good turkey curry and turkey soup...........not to mention all those butties, pie and salad.

Bye for now X

Carry on Cruising

Hello again, nice to see you. Are you ready for Christmas yet?

We've finally escaped from the marina and set off this morning on our way to Bugsworth Basin where we're spending Christmas.

It's been a beautiful day for cruising and it was great to be moving again. There were lots of walkers about and the biggest Kingfisher I've ever seen flew alongside the boat.

The trees and plants seem to be confused by the warm weather we've been having recently. I saw several trees which were starting to bud and also these primroses which were blooming beside the towpath.

The sun shone as we crossed Marple Aquaduct which has had a lot of work done to it since we were here last.

Marple Locks are deep and heavy to operate so I drove and Roger did the hard bit. One of the locks (sorry I can't remember which one) is leaking heavily through the side wall and the boat got soaked. I'm glad we had the cratch cover down as the bow would have been flooded but at least it washed some of the muck off the roof.

Roger had help with the locks as a fellow boater friend of ours, Phil, came to give us a hand. Once we'd got to the top of the flight and moored up we adjourned to the Ring o'Bells pub and "paid" him with beer. His help was very welcome but it was even nicer to catch up on the local gossip as we haven't seen him for a year or so. Hopefully he'll be able to join us with his wife and boat in Bugsworth next week and we can carry on where we left off.

Bye for now.

A Rude Awakening

Hi, Lovely to see you here again. I hope you're well and making the most of the mild weather.

I find marina life extremely boring which is why I haven't inflicted the mundane minutia of my current day-to-day life on you. We are both recovering from nasty colds gifted to us by our lovely grandchildren when we saw them last month, but that's a small price to pay for having had such a wonderful time away with them.

We had a rude awakening last night - literally - as the Carbon Monoxide alarm went off just after we'd got to sleep. The fire was very low and banked down as it was still 12' outside when we went to bed, so we opened the door and windows and the alarm stopped shrieking. Chico wasn't impressed as the alarm is right above his bed and he took himself off to hide under our bed at the other end of the boat. To be on the safe side we left plenty of windows open and went back to bed.

Checking on the internet this morning the main reason for carbon monoxide poisoning is due to a lack of ventilation but as we have 5 mushroom vents as well as plenty of low level ventilation grilles throughout the boat we didn't think that would have been the problem.  Just to be sure I took all the vent covers off to have a look and I was gobsmacked!  We've had an awful lot of spiders in the boat this autumn due to the mild weather and they seem to have taken up residence behind the grilles.

Our mushroom vent covers have an insect grille behind them to keep mossies and spiders out while still allowing a good flow of air

When I took the covers off almost every vent was full of spiders webs that looked like cotton wool

The grille covers were almost totally blocked which had drastically cut down the ventilation

A quick clean with an old toothbrush soon had them clear again.

Cleaning the vent covers is usually one of my spring cleaning jobs but in future it'll be done before we start using the fire in the autumn.

So that's my tip for the day. If you haven't got a carbon monoxide alarm - GET ONE!

And don't let the spiders bung up your holes...............

Bye for now

Quick Update

Hi, nice to see you again.

I've been away for a few weeks looking after my mum who finally had her knee replacement operation. Unfortunately she was quite poorly after the op and had to stay in hospital for a week rather than the usual 2 days but she's much better now and is much more mobile.

We've also had a week's holiday in a very wet and windy Cumbria with our children and grandkids. The house we'd rented was HUGE and it's been a bit of a shock coming back home to the boat which seems very low and narrow. I suppose I'll soon adjust.

We're currently moored at Portland Basin Marina as Roger is helping the owner refit a boat. I'm hoping we'll manage to escape before Christmas, but if not we'll definitely need to move shortly afterwards to get past the winter maintenance stoppages on the Marple Lock Flight due to start at the beginning of January. It's a long time since we were last on the Macclesfield Canal and we're both looking forward to visiting old friends and checking out some of our favourite pubs.

Bye for now

Liverpool to Droylesden

Hi, sorry I haven't blogged since leaving Liverpool. We've had a few problems getting internet as our wi-fi box, which has served us brilliantly for the past few years, suddenly decided to give up the ghost. We had internet through our phones so were never out of touch with the real world and are back online again thanks to a new mi-fi unit.

We hardly ever have any problems with rubbish getting stuck around our propeller as we have a very efficient blade fitted on the prop shaft which cuts weeds  and plastic bags off. No matter how sharp it is there was no way it could cope with this pair of fisherman's trousers which we picked up in Wigan.

Luckily we'd recently bought a new toy "just in case". We've always had a dedicated carving knife to deal with any stubborn crap but this was the first occasion Roger had had to try out his folding pull-saw. It's pretty lethal and worked amazingly well. Hopefully he won't need to use it again for a very long time.

The trip from Liverpool to Manchester was made in gorgeous unseasonal weather. It was warm enough to still be in t-shirts and we had some amazing sunsets. The autumnal colours of the trees were pretty spectacular too.

We needed to be through Worsley by Monday as the Bridgewater Canal was being closed for 4 months for installation of a new gate which will raise up off the canal bed to form a barrier in case of a breach.

Spending a night in Boothstown gave us the opportunity to catch up with the 2 guys who used to work for us when we were still building boats. Stuart is now a buyer for a major wholesaler and Jimmy has retired. It was hilarious as we all tried to remember our sign language as Jimmy and his wife are profoundly deaf.  Strange but I could only remember the swear words..............

After Boothstown we spent a few days in the centre of Manchester in Castlefield Basin. On Wednesday evening we had a night out with David who has been travelling with us for the past 5 weeks. We started off with cocktails in Cloud 23 bar in the Hilton Hotel. It's on the 23rd floor and the views were spectacular. The prices were too!!!

After cocktails we walked into China Town and went for a Japanese Tapanyaki dinner. The bibs were compulsory!

Yesterday David helped us up the Rochdale Nine locks before leaving us to go back to his winter moorings.

The duck des-res was looking a bit overgrown

but the flowers beside the locks in Canal Street were still well tended and in full bloom.

There was a lot of rubbish in the water, unfortunately including lots of syringes and used condoms. It made me laugh that there were also several unopened packets of condoms floating about - all size extra large!!

Today we set off early to come up the 18 locks on the Aston Flight. We had a really good trip until we got to lock 16. We hadn't seen any other boats all day but when we got to no. 16 there was a small boat moored up. I went up to empty the lock but it wouldn't drain properly as one of the top hydraulic  paddles had failed and was stuck open. A woman off the moored boat came to say she'd phoned CRT yesterday but no-one had been. Roger phoned the help-line and within 10 minutes a very nice CRT man arrived. He said he was aware of the problem but was unable to fix the defective paddle without using stop-planks and was unable to do that without getting the works signed off by an engineer which would take weeks. With his help Roger managed to man-handle the bottom gates open and we carried on our journey. Unfortunately the people on the moored boat had disappeared so we weren't able to help them through. They hadn't been on-board yesterday when the CRT guy had come round either.  Lock 17 was uneventful but when we got to the top lock no. 18 we had more problems. We couldn't get the hand-cuff locks off the top paddles so had to phone CRT again. By the time the CRT guy arrived 40 minutes later the boat was about half way up the lock, thanks to a leaking top gate. He was extremely apologetic; the top lock has extra long hand-cuff locks on it to stop the local scroats messing with the paddles but unfortunately he'd forgotten to undo them this morning. We'll never get caught out like that again. One of the next jobs Roger is planning on doing is making an extra long hand-cuff key.

We'd been due to moor in Portland Basin Marina tonight but by the time we got out of Lock 18 it was starting to go dark and we still had about an hours cruise to get there, so after a quick phone call to make other arrangements we're now moored in Droylesden Marina.

By then the rain had stopped and the sunset looking back towards Manchester was pretty spectacular

Bye for now