Steak Monsters unleashed!

Hello, nice to see you.

Yesterday afternoon we had a bit of retail therapy at Cheshire Oaks Outlet Village, but first Roger and David were a bit peckish so we headed for the Miller and Carter steakhouse for a "light bite".  The last time we ate in one of these restaurants was in Liverpool and the meal had been superb.  We weren't disappointed this time either.

Roger had a 30 day aged 18oz rib-eye

I had a 45 day aged 9oz rump which was as soft as butter

and David had a 30 day aged 10oz fillet on the bone

You wouldn't want to be stranded on a dessert island with this man.......

And then to finish it off they both had chocolate and cherry puds with chocolate martinis to follow!!!!

We were quite restrained in Cheshire Oaks. I was sorely tempted to get these Doc Martens for my granddaughters birthday but when I phoned her mum to check the size she said "no".......  I understand really, as its coming up towards summer she'll be in sandals a lot and will probably outgrow them before they've had much wear. I might just have to get them for Christmas instead.

Roger drooled over the Tag Huer watches but couldn't quite justify buying himself this one. Half price at £2995  

The chocolate martinis had gone down so well that we called into Sainsburys on the way home to buy the ingredients.  All we need now is some martini glasses and there'll be no stopping them.  Maybe we should open a floating cocktail bar?

Today we continued our trip to Ellesmere Port and are now moored in the lower basin at the National Waterways Museum.

On the way we saw our first ducklings of the season. There were 13 little balls of fluff

and our first waterways speed camera too

Once we'd settled in and had lunch (vegetarian today) went for a wander around the museum. It costs £5.40 per person for the first day including the mooring and then each additional day is £4 per boat.  At such a reasonable cost I'd have expected there to be more boats here. The museum was almost void of general public punters too. Such a shame.

My favourite exhibit was this crocheted wall hanging

especially the castles

and roses

I'm not sure what's planned for tomorrow as yet. It'll depend on the weather I suppose.

See you soon

Locks, wind and a Beluga

Welcome back, I hope you're well.

We left Chester yesterday just as the heavens opened. It was typical April Showers; very heavy rain for a couple of minutes followed by brilliant sunshine but interspersed with hailstones as well. It was also incredibly windy too.

The canal leaves Chester following the old Chester Walls down to the staircase of 3 locks. There's a lot of temporary fencing along this stretch as works are about to start to stabilise the bedrock below the wall as it's started to crumble and fall down onto the towpath.

We were helped down the staircase by the volunteer lock-keeper. There are 3 different keepers who are on duty Tuesday to Thursday, mainly to help the many hire boaters.

Passing under the footbridge from the top lock into the middle one. It's a popular place for gongoozlers.

The gates are huge.  As usual Roger had the pleasure of working the staircase. I always drive through staircase locks as I have a fear of heights and find it difficult looking down into these very deep locks to keep an eye on the boats.

These locks are cut through the red bedrock.

Once we'd got down the staircase we pulled in at Taylors Boatyard to fill up with water and then had to reverse into the lock to use the pump-out machine which is lock-side. This lock is hardly ever used as it goes down onto the River Dee cutting but the pump-out machine was so efficient we would've only held up other boats by 5 minutes or so.

By this time the wind was really strong and we couldn't wait to get to the next set of moorings as cruising was becoming quite unpleasant.

We passed a building with a beautiful unusual curved roof. Turns out it's the local crematorium.

Just  before we moored up this Airbus Beluga flew over. They're really weird looking but designed for carrying the huge Airbus components from their manufacturing plants around the world to the final assembly plant in Toulouse.  This one was about to land at Broughton which is where the wings are made.

This is the front view and shows where the plane gets it's name from - the Beluga Whale

 (photo courtesy of the Airbus website)

That's all for now, take care and come back soon.

Chester & a dentist

Hi, welcome back.

We didn't leave Chester as planned yesterday as the weather was too bad. It persisted down all day so we planned to leave this morning instead.  That plan failed as well, as last night I broke a filling and although it wasn't painful I though I'd better get it seen to incase it got worse when we were in the middle of nowhere.

I always thought that dentists were like doctors and that you could register as a temporary patient at any NHS practice but that's not the case. You can register with any dentist, but only in the area covered by your Primary Health Care Trust, i.e. the region where your GP is registered.  The dental practice I contacted explained that having a filling done privately wasn't much more expensive than having it done on the NHS and the good news was that they could see me today.  As usual with me nothing ever goes to plan, and when the dentist started drilling to remove the remains of my filling the whole tooth exploded so now I need a crown fitting!  He's done all the preliminary work and ordered the crown for next week but the bad part is we're now talking £450!!!!!!!!!  The tooth might not have been painful but the bill certainly is.

The water point at Christleton has been moved. It used to be in a really awkward spot beside the bridge which meant that if any boats were moored outside the pub you had to basically block the canal to fill up.  It's now been moved through the bridge (going towards Chester) and is much more user friendly. Interestingly, they've installed one of the old type cast iron taps rather than one of the new flimsy stainless steel type.

Why on earth do dog walkers do things like this?  If they can make the effort to pick up and bag the dog poo why can't they take it with them?  I put it on the roof and disposed of it at the next lock where there was a bin.

The weather's been really nice today so after I got back from the dentist we took Chico out and went for a walk down by the river where the passenger boats were doing a brisk trade as the kids are on holiday.

We came back through Grosvenor Park where Chico chased a couple of pigeons and squirrels. The miniature train was running today but didn't seem very busy at all.

That's all for now, see you again soon

Nantwich to Christleton

Hello, welcome back again

We finished off the Nantwich Music Festival at the Civic Hall on Monday evening. The "Star Turn" were the Ska band Bad Manners.  It took me back to my teens and I had a great time dancing the night away, unfortunately Roger and David weren't as impressed with the music and then to cap it all off the bar ran out of Guiness about an hour before band finished. Ah well, you can't please all of the people all of the time...............

For the week that we were in Nantwich we never saw anyone allow their dog to foul the towpath and there wasn't any litter anywhere either. That changed on Monday tea time when 2 dogs came running unattended down the towpath, followed a few minutes later by a boat which moored behind us.  First thing on Tuesday morning they opened their side doors to let the dogs out to do their business and then started throwing bits of rubbish out of the doors over the embankment. By the time we set off late morning there was dog poo and litter everywhere. Some boaters are just disgusting!

There's a sunken boat near Hurleston Junction.

It looks like it's been there a while and could do with removing as it's leaking diesel into the canal.

We're now on our way to Chester. The locks on this canal are wide and deep and there's a staircase of 3 locks at Bunbury which is a good spot for gongoozlers (people who watch canal boats).  When we arrived at the staircase there was already a boat in the bottom lock so we went down and passed them in the middle lock as they came up. It gave the gongoozlers something to gawp at.

It's lovely to be on the move again and even though the lock gates are huge they're not too difficult to open.

Apart from a bit of rain this morning, the weather is continuing to be very spring like and the trees are greening up nicely.

The ducks and swans are starting to get amorous and we saw our first swan sitting on her nest the other day.

Why is it that whenever something exciting happens you never have the camera handy?  Today we were mooring at Waverton for a lunch/grand prix TV break when David fell in the canal. It would have made a good photo for my blog and his Facebook page. Luckily he wasn't hurt but he's drowned his phone and dented his pride. Good job he's got a good sense of humour................

We're going to spend tomorrow in Chester as the boys are taking me out for lunch and then on Monday we'll carry on towards Ellesmere Port.

Bye for now, come back soon

Nantwich Jazz Blues and Music Festival

Ooops.....it's been 10 days since my last blog.  Doesn't time fly quickly when you're having fun?

We're currently moored at Nantwich for the 20th Jazz, Blues and Music Festival.  As last year, it's a really good event and if you like music it's definitely something to add to your calendar. You need a wrist band to get into the majority of events which are held in the pubs and clubs around town, but at £7 for the weekend its extremely good value.

We've been joined by our boating friend David on Why Knot 2 and so far we've seen half a dozen really good acts.

We started the weekend in The Railway pub's marquee watching a brilliant rock band called Brazen

Yesterday we saw Alex McKown Band.  This was the third time we've seen this young band but I sincerely hope it won't be our last.  Alex is a budding Joe Bonamassa and has a really bright future in front of him. He sure can play Blues guitar!

Today we watched a duo we'd seen last year. Baxter are described as "the thinking man's Renee and Renata".  That really doesn't do them any justice. They are a local duo who sing and play a wide variety of music from folk to the Stones. Whatever they played they certainly entertained the audience and had us all singing and dancing along.

Later on this afternoon we returned to the Railway marquee to see another band we've seen before. We were a bit early so it was silly selfie time

It was definitely worth the wait and I haven't bopped so much for years. The band was called Tumbling Dice and mostly played Rolling Stones although they also threw in lots of other rock tracks as well. The place was absolutely rammed.  Not bad to say that only the lead singer looked under 65!

I hope you're having a good Easter wherever you are.  Bye for now

Happy St Patrick's Day

Happy St Patrick's Day!

By the time we left Ellesmere this morning the mist had lifted  and it's been another gorgeous sunny day again here. I hope it's been as nice wherever you are.

We're moored in one of our favourite places, near the junction to the Prees branch and with views over the mosses. The evening bird chorus is lovely and there is a barn owl flying low over the field on the other side of the canal.

We've taken full advantage of the sunny afternoon. Roger washed all the coal dust and green moss off the roof while I planted up a few flower and herb tubs.

It was the perfect spot to get the whirly gig out to dry the washing

and the bench under the chestnut tree was the perfect spot for Roger to sit in the sun and play his guitar.  I did suggest that he put a hat out for donations from passers-by but that didn't go down too well..........

Bye for now, please come back again soon

Granny Time

Hi, it's nice to see you again.

Every few months we hire a car and go "up north" to visit our daughter's family.  As usual we rented from Enterprise Car Hire who collected us from Chirk. We took Chico to the kennels - Plumtree Boarding Kennels in Oswestry - and set off up the M6. It's a really beautiful stretch of motorway through the lake district and there was still snow on the tops. Our sat nav took us the scenic route from Carlisle to Northumberland. The views were spectacular as we drove across the moors and through the artillery ranges. For most of the way the road was single track and at one point I had to get out and open a gate. I'm sure there was a more direct route along A roads but it was so pretty up there that we returned by the same route on Monday.

We had a great time with our grandchildren. It was even wonderful to be woken up at 6.30 am because "it's time to play Granny!"

On Sunday we went to the local National Trust property Cragside. It was the first house in the world to be lit by hydro-electricity and both the house and grounds were fascinating and well worth the visit.

The former owner Lord Armstrong was a keen landscaper and collector of pine trees from around the world. Some of them were huge!

After a lovely weekend with gorgeous warm and sunny weather, we're now back on the boat. We're currently moored at Ellesmere where I stocked up at Tesco, but this time it's just a one night stay and we'll be on the move again tomorrow.

Bye for now,
Come back soon