From Marston to Barnton

13th & 14th January

We made a leisurely start to Sunday, and after breakfast I trotted round to the local shop to see what paper I could get, having had to be satisfied with a Times on Saturday. It was closed altogether, just doesn't open on Sundays. It's also up for sale, which may have something to do with not being open when you'd expect a small paper shop and general store come cafe to be so.

I got back to the boat just as the weather started to deteriorate, and it proved to be the pattern for the day, getting steadily worse until the boat was bouncing about with the mooring ropes creaking. We know this as Onedin Line conditions, but that just dates us, I guess.

I spent a good chunk of the day on IT type stuff; the regular Sunday housekeeping chores, but also having some fun putting pictures up on the main website. I've put the images we used for this year's calendar and Christmas card up there, and I'm working on the annual choice of cruising photos.

Up until this year we'd supplied a page of text summarising the previous year's cruising, and linked pictures to it. With the blog covering the whole of last year, though, it seems redundant (not to mention a lot of work) to summarise it for the main website. What I think we'll do instead is to mount a larger than usual picture gallery, with at least one pic per month, and I'll put a decent piece of text about that month's cruising below it.

As a break from all this hi tech stuff, I made some mayonnaise with the Bamix magic wand, and sliced up some white cabbage and onion, which together with a grated carrot made a decent bowl of coleslaw to put in lunchtime sandwiches. It seems more appropriate than salad at this time of year.

Sheila meanwhile took advantage of the latest batch of knitting wool to arrive via Peter and Jan, and started a Guernsey of her own.

This morning it was still quite windy, but we needed to move on to keep our commitments to meet folks at various times on the Bridgewater Canal. I was steering, and in fact it wasn't too bad for most of the time. The wind, although gusty, was by no means the worst I've boated in, and for quite a while it was sunny in that pale blue winterish sort of way.

We stopped on the service block at Anderton, filled the water tank and did a very thorough pump out, there being a good pressure on the rinse out hose. We didn't manage to get the Tankwatch light back to green, meaning totally empty, but we must have made an impression on it. The bit that goes into the deck fitting has a sight glass in it, so you can see when you are extracting serious sludge: it does seem to upset Sheila if I say things like "Oh look, there's a bit of carrot" however.

After all this jollification, we went on to just before Barnton tunnel, mooring in the basin between the road bridge and the tunnel mouth. It was lunch time, and after lunch we walked up into the village to shop. The Co-op here has moved further up hill than it was – follow the signs for the Medical Centre and you'll come to it.

Barnton also has one of the system's better butchers, so we stocked up on meat supplies. We were served by a remarkable man who has one hand, and a double hook for the other, but nonetheless needs no assistance to handle the meat or those flimsy plastic bags that they put it in nowadays.

Then we boated through the tunnel to moor in the pool between Barnton and Saltersford tunnels for the night. The prop had been feeling odd, shaking and juddering after we'd gone through a bridge 'ole on the way here, so after we'd done a wash load and stopped the engine, I opened the weed hatch and had a feel around. Sure enough we had a black plastic sack down there.

At least Sheila will have full control going through Saltersford tomorrow, which is just as well in view of its bends.