Sitting tight in windy weather

30th November and 1st December

We’ve decided to spend at least a couple of days here near Bollington – we may well move on Sunday to take advantage of a forecast window of better weather, or else we’ll be stuck here until Tuesday, and would be a bit short of water by then. It’s always quite enjoyable sticking in one place for just a few days, reading and doing jobs around the boat.

I’ve been reading George R R Martin on Graeme’s recommendation. I’d tried one of his before, Dying of the Light, which is a quite weird sci-fi cum fantasy novel. It seems this was not what Graeme was thinking of – whilst at Boothby Graffoe, I started the first book of the Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones, and got so far into it that I borrowed it to take home. I’ve just finished it, and will now have to wait until we see Graeme and Cathy at New Year, when they’ve promised to bring the rest of the series that's so far been published.

It’s a swords and sorcery type fantasy, but extremely well done – the nearest thing to Tolkien I’ve come across, partly because the background is so well developed, unlike so many Tolkien imitators. The characters are far more realistic than most, so that you really care what becomes of them. This can be hard - Martin does not believe in preserving characters just because they are popular or sympathetic, so turning the page to see what becomes of them can be hard at times.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we went to Bollington for basic shopping. Bollington is another of those villages of two halves – Upper Bollington above the canal and Lower or West Bollington below it. There are lots of footpaths and the Middlewood Way linking the two and the various access points to the towpath – if hanging about in this area, it’s well worth getting the leaflet about the Middlewood Way to explore the options thoroughly.

Anyway, on this occasion we went uphill, where there are a butchers, a bakery and a newsagent, along with sundry other cafes and hairdressers. We got a loaf, and a paper, and some meat to restock the freezer. The butchers is a branch of Heathcotes – there’s another in West Bollington, and one in Poynton. It’s not as good as Coates in Alrewas, but pretty fair.

In the afternoon, Sheila spent a fair bit of time sorting financial stuff on the web, and I prepared meat for freezing down. I like to check over stewing steak – the butcher often leaves it cut into very mixed size chunks, and then it’s a hassle when defrosting it, as you have to get it totally thawed to recut it before you can start cooking it. By making sure that the pieces are the right size, you don’t have to get it completely soft before bunging it into the pan.

I also dismembered a chicken, freezing most of the joints, keeping a breast fillet back for making tagine last night, and putting the carcass into the stock pot to make stock for soup.

It was a wild night last night, but a bright and cold morning, so we walked into West Bollington via the Middlewood Way, including crossing over the viaduct that runs right across the village. This half has another newsagent, a pharmacy and a Co-op, as well as the above mentioned butcher. There’s also a shop calling itself a bakery, but it’s more of a sandwich shop really.

Back at the boat we carried on with various domestic tasks as the weather closed in. We’re moored on pins here, as there’s no Armco piling to take our piling chains (better than hooks), but since we’re also sitting on the bottom (typical Macclesfield Canal shallow edge) it’s not proving much of a problem. In other situations, on a deeper and busier canal, mooring pins can be a right pain, as passing boats pull you to and fro and work them out.