Definitely Spring

29th & 30th March

With nowhere to go yesterday, we made a lazy start, by the standards of British Summer Time, and staggered up at around half eight. We'd been serenaded a good deal earlier by an extremely cheerful thrush; I didn't get up to check which kind, but we later saw several blackbirds and a speckled thrush that I reckoned was a Mistle, but Sheila said was a Song Thrush.

Since we didn't have a pair of binoculars with us, and it flew off away from us, the matter has been left to lie on the file.

This was during our walk after breakfast, officially in search of the geocache 'goosy goosy walk', but really just to have an excuse to walk round the lake. The webpage for the cache showed that the last three people to try to find it had failed, so we weren't desperately surprised not to do so ourselves, though we were very sure we were in the right place.

Back at the boat, I put an "Archive this cache" request up – it's no good pretending that it's still there when it's clearly been muggled. As we finished our walk, we realised that there is an underpass from the Water Park to Branston village, so went and explored that to buy a paper.

The rest of the day was pretty idyllic. We had lunch, then got on the roof in the sunshine and cleaned the Houdini hatch with Shiny Sinks. It'll need polishing again this week, but with a good forecast, and with not much boating to do, we should manage to find time to do it.

It's a sign of Spring, of course. The whole boat is looking a bit scruffy on the outside, frankly, but things need to be done in order. The Shiny Sinks leaves mucky streaks on the roof and sides when it's washed off, so that has to be used first, then the roof washed, then the sides washed and eventually polished, though we probably won't do that until we've finished with the docking, grit blasting and blacking bit.

The aim is to have her looking all beautiful for Crick Show, at the end of May, so we've a bit of time in hand.

Whilst engaged in this, Pintail came and tied in front of us, and her owner came back for a chat. I can't recall when we last saw them, but it's always good to have these casual catching up sessions.

Sheila then sowed the first batch of seeds in a couple of pots; basil under a sheet of cling film, and land cress in the open. These will, with luck, form cut and come again crops for the first part of the summer.

After that we felt all tired and virtuous, and sat and read in the sun on the towpath for most of what was left of the afternoon.

Later on, Elanor rang and subsequently called in on her way back from the BCN Clean Up. We had a great evening, mostly catching up on WRG gossip. We'd thought about eating out, as we owe her a meal in celebration of her recent birthday, but neither the Bridge Inn nor the Blacksmiths Arms in the village were doing food on a Sunday evening.

Instead, we're going to buy her a meal tonight, here in Alrewas.

We were woken by the same thrush this morning, and got up a bit more promptly, with some boating to do. It proved to be a fairly straightforward run, enlivened only by me checking up one of BW's barmier claims.

There used to be a rubbish point in Barton Turns Marina, but it's moved to the grounds of a nearby transport caff on the A38 (thank you Nev). The signs announcing this state that the cafe, the Oakamoor, is only 100 yards from the marina.

This has always been patently not true, but just out of curiosity I checked the GPS odometer reading as we stopped to dump our rubbish today, and then again as we passed the marina. The answer is 0.95 of a mile, suggesting that BW office staff believe that there are 100 yards in a mile.

This could explain a lot.

On arrival at Alrewas, we found no boats at all tied on the moorings by the water point, next to what used to be Rebel's field. In the six years we've been coming here, that's the first time I've seen these moorings deserted.

It just shows what damage the 48 hour limit is doing to Alrewas's pub and shop trade.

This afternoon we went in search of the first few of a new series of caches on the canal between Bagnall Lock and Fradley. We found four, and launched our new Travel Bug, 'Little Sanity', in the first of them.

As I said on her webpage, may she bring loads of luck and laughter to all who move her around, just like her namesake.

To Burton and back to Branston

27th & 28th March

Yesterday dawned bright and breezy as we made a prompt start with a bit of boating to do. First thing was the run down to the water point, where we started the tank filling and a wash load running whilst I nipped into the village to get a paper.

The tap was running quite slowly, so there was still plenty of time left when I got back, then it was off down Alrewas Lock and onto the river section. The GPS showed us touching a ferocious 5.5 mph as we shot downstream, Sheila leaning on the tiller to bring us round into the side stream that leads past Wychnor moorings.

The wind gave her a bit of a problem whilst waiting for Wychnor Lock to fill, but we were soon away on the plod to Barton Turn Lock, with the A34 roaring beside us. Below the lock we found two refugees in the shape of Montmorency and Wild Orchid, both boats formerly in the habit of spending a lot of time at Alrewas before the imposition of 48 hour mooring there.

As we came out of the lock, Ami Bovard appeared coming the other way, and we had some shouted conversation in best boating style as we crossed. The female half of her crew was in particularly good form on the subject of the Alrewas moorings – she reckons that the whole point of the exercise was to move Montmorency on.

This seems a bit of an odd way to go about it. The relevant Acts give BW the power to surcharge an overstaying boat, and if necessary to cancel its licence and remove it from the water. So why go to all the hassle of installing totems and signs through the village just to move one boat on?

Tatenhill Lock was soon passed, Sheila having to show particular skill in the cross wind to get through the narrow bridge on the way. At Branston, Jambus was struggling to get into the lock, and indeed it wasn't straightforward for us either. Branston Lock is particularly exposed. and the lock landing was downwind.

In the end, I took the short shaft and, standing on the bank, held her bow out whilst Sheila drove Sanity into the lock. It's one situation where you might think a bowthruster would useful, but frankly I doubt if the typical bowthruster would have the power to hold the bow against such a strong wind.

When using the shaft like this, it's important to push against the hull, not the cabin side. I usually rest the end on the top rubbing strake, the one that goes the length of the boat. That way, if it slips, it slips down into the water, and not up onto the shiny paintwork or worse, through a window. The other crucial thing is to keep your centre of gravity over the bank, not the water, so that if something does slip, you don't disappear into the cut.

Arriving at the Morrison's mooring we had lunch, then went shopping. The Bluetooth mouse has been getting a more and more cantankerous of late, sometimes refusing to switch on, or switching off in mid session. It's innards are getting plastic fatigue, I reckon, so we called into Currys to see if we could find a new one.

All the cordless mouses they had were not Bluetooth, but used a receiver plugged into a USB port. I don't see the point of this, as it still blocks a port. Back at the boat, after we'd had a good go round Morrison's, I did some net browsing and found a Macally mouse which was just what we needed.

It was soon ordered, from Qfonic, a store I'd never heard of, but who accepted payment via Google Checkout, so I felt reasonably confident in ordering from them. It's going to be delivered to Elanor's, and hopefully will arrive before we leave the area. That reminds me, must tell Elanor it's coming.

The other main excitement dusing the afternoon was me showering (yes, again). I'd just got settled in to lathering up when I realised there was no raucous buzzing from round my feet, and the water wasn't disappearing down the plughole.

A quick shout to Sheila and she went and checked the distribution board, and soon found that the breaker for the shower pump circuit was a) out and b) wouldn't stay in.

I managed to shower without totally filling the shower tray, then, once dried and dressed, took the pump apart. As I suspected, the impeller had lost one of its little wings, which had then jammed the pump. Fortunately, we had a spare, so I put it in after only a few minutes creative swearing. (Pump impellers are one of those things that either slip in sweetly at the first attempt, or else resist arrest for ages.)

After that, it was a case of refixing the pump to the wall, another source of A-level cussin', and all was well again. After about half an hour of lying on my back with the loo pressed into my kidneys, I felt I needed another shower, but refrained from taking one. One can have too much of a good thing.

Today we had a relaxed start, as we only wanted to run down to Shobnall to see if they would refund our money on the leaking water pump. You can tell Sanity is nearly six years old, the stuff we've had to replace recently. Whoever buys her next year will be getting a boat set up for at least another five years without having to do a thing to her, we'll have replaced it all.

The good folk who run Shobnall made no bones about taking the pump back, though they reckoned it was unusual for a Jabsco to fail like that. I bought the filters and oil for Sanity's next service, so they had some money back from me, and after our usual natter about boaty things, we came back to Sanity.

After a cup of coffee we winded in the mouth of the basin and came back to Branston Water Park. We got here just in nice time for lunch, and plan to stay here tomorrow.

We've been researching local geocaches. There's a whole new series around Fradley, but it looks as if the one here has been muggled. No matter, we'll go and see if we can find it tomorrow morning early before many people are around.

Sitting out some wet and windy weather

25th & 26th March

It's been a wild and windy couple of days, though things are looking better as I type this. It means there's not so much to report boating wise, as we've stayed hunkered down in Sanity apart from necessary trips out.

Yesterday we had a lazy start, despite waking early, and loafed in bed until well after half seven. When we did finally emerge, I ambled down into Alrewas for a paper, and to drop off a repeat prescription request at the surgery. I went the long way round, walking along to the Wharf Bridge. There are indeed still 48 hour mooring signs all along from Bagnall to Alrewas Lock.

There were a few boats at the nearer end, by the Bowling Green, but then nothing until the far side of the water point, where a solitary Canaltime sat in the place of the usual string of regular moorers.

Back at the boat, I checked again the email that Jane Howarth had forwarded to me, in which Chris Thompstone of BW West Mids claimed that the signs were to be taken down last week. I emailed the Secretary of the local IWA Branch to pass on my views, on the assumption that the Branch would be actively involved in discussions about the right level of mooring control. I haven't had a reply as yet, but I guess he's a busy man; the Branch has a very active programme of social events and talks to keep organised...

It remained a day for computer type activity, with the wind howling outside, so I turned to and wrote the next post for the Building Sanity Again blog, this time on Communications. I also made a start on organising some of the falconry photos for mounting on the static website, but had to take a break from it, as I was becoming boss eyed with all the screen time. I'll carry on with those as fast as I can, though.

Elanor stopped by on her way home from work, and had a meal with us, which was great. She dropped off a load of post, but then called again from home to say that a) she'd forgotten to take our Seasearcher magnet away with her (she's borrowing it for the weekend's BCN clean up) and b) we had a little parcel from UKgeocaching.

This parcel would be the Trakabulldog trackable item I'd ordered, so it seemed like a good idea to get it from her.

Accordingly, she called by on her way into work this morning, which meant we had to be up and about a bit more promptly. The Trakabulldog, strictly speaking a geocoin, works like a Travel Bug, that I think I've mentioned before.

Basically, you release it into the wild by leaving it in a geocache, with a mission, and then folks collect from one cache and drop it off in another, logging its movements on a dedicated webpage as they do so.

We're going to attach a model narrowboat to this one, and so we've called it Little Sanity. Its mission is to visit as many caches alongside navigable inland waterways as possible.

We'll be at Shobnall Chandlery during the weekend, so will hopefully acquire the model boat then.

The rest of the morning was taken up with me visiting the surgery for a blood test, and then we both went to see our dentist, Ehsan Rana for routine checks and a scale and polish.

That all went fine, so we bought some bread and a couple of pasties from Coates the Butchers to celebrate. The weather, which had been great, decided to play a little trick on us on the way back to the boat, and absolutely tipped down a mixture of stinging hail and penetrating rain.

The main challenge was to get the pasties back to the boat without them becoming soaked, which we just about succeeded in doing, at cost of getting drenched ourselves.

We've spent the rest of the day onboard again, chilling out, Sheila doing some proofreading, me catching up with the paper and various bits and bobs that came in the post. Sheila's also brought the financial stuff up to date, so we're both feeling quite virtuous.

Tomorrow we'll head down into Burton, to see if we can get a refund on the leaking water pump we bought from Shobnall, and to get some cans of Pedigree from the Marston's Brewery Shop.

Then it'll be an amble back here for the Tuesday walk and my second trip to the surgery a week tomorrow for my blood test results. After that, we'll head into the wilds of the BCN, aiming to be at Norton Canes by Easter weekend, so that Sanity can go on the dock in the week following.

Two days good boating

23rd and 24th March

We got away in good time yesterday, as we wanted to get a pump out and diesel at Anglo Welsh, and the forecast was for rain later. In the event, we arrived at the yard before the staff, just as they open at 8.30, and we were there at twenty past.

We had the usual cheerful service; Sanity took rather more diesel than I was expecting, just, and when I filled in the spreadsheet that we use to calculate our propulsion/domestic split, it became apparent that the engine consumption had gone up.

For most of the time we've had the boat, the engine has used between 1.2 and 1.3 litres per hour, but recently it's been down around just 1 lph. I'd put this down to variations in pump gauges and the amount by which the tank gets filled, but it now occurs to me that the declining consumption might have been a warning sign of the fuel filter collapsing and restricting the fuel flow.

We'd not noticed any change in performance, as you would with a road vehicle, but of course the engine is so lightly loaded that it's unlikely that you'd notice her not pulling as hard.

We heard a trio of classic BW stories from the yard staff as we were filling up. The ground paddle at Great Haywood has finally been repaired. It took two stoppages, during one of which nothing happened, then at the other, no less than 18 blokes turned up, of whom 2 actually did the work.

Meanwhile, someone from English Heritage came to inspect the Junction Bridge, which is a listed structure. It needs some maintenance, and BW are asking Anglo Welsh to foot the bill, as their customers use the bridge (along with hundreds of others, of course).

BW did hire two of the AW day boats as part of their programme for giving the HQ staff experience of being on the water, but even that was not without its hassles, as they had to complete a substantial risk assessment for this highly dangerous activity.

Chuckling gently to ourselves, we set off to head back towards Alrewas, in increasingly gusty conditions. Sheila demonstrated how to wind in the junction in such circumstances, when there is a very real risk of being blown onto the reed bed on the offside. I stayed on the towpath with the bow line, so that I was able to help the boat pivot round. Then, when Sanity was starting to point in the required direction, I coiled it up and chucked it onto the foredeck, before walking down to set the lock.

We went on to what is becoming our favourite mooring this side of Rugeley by Bridge 69, where we sat out a bit of real equinoctial weather, with fierce winds and rain squalls.

Today we made another prompt start, getting to Rugeley just on half eight after 40 minutes boating. A good shopping trip to Morrisons followed, then we set out once more. Normally we'd have stopped at Kings Bromley, but we knew that there was a chance that Elanor would drop in tonight, so we decided to press on to Fradley.

There was plenty of room above Shade House Lock, where we took a long lunch break, including starting a wash load, so that the machine was through its heat cycle before we wanted to set off again.

We could have stopped there, but it would have meant quite a trek for Elanor from the car parks at the bottom, so we worked down the locks under the supervision of a variety of gongoozlers. It looks as if the Easter holidays have started early for some. As today's lockwheeler, Sheila spent a bit of time doing her public education bit, which always adds interest to a routine flight we know so well.

A slight flaw in our planning became apparent when we got through Junction Lock; there was no room on the visitor moorings. There was nothing for it, we went on to Alrewas a day early. We've been able to tie above Bagnall, and will probably stay here now until Friday when we leave to go down to Burton.

There's a fast internet signal here, which we wouldn't get in the village, and no houses around to annoy with running our engine. Tomorrow I'll do a post to the Building Sanity Again blog, hopefully, about communications, I think.

Final touch – Elanor just rang to say she can't make it tonight, but will call in tomorrow. Ah well, the long run gave the batteries a good charge, and Sheila has had the benefit of the exercise.

Another weekend on Tixall Wide

21st & 22nd March

Yesterday was another great Spring day, frosty at first but warming up quite quickly. We had a relaxed start, with not a lot of boating to do, and had an easy chug to Great Haywood.

We stopped on the water point to top up, so as to be able to do two washloads over the weekend. Whilst Sheila superintended this, I popped along to the village for a paper and some milk.

Then it was round the familiar pound to Tixall, thereby completing a circumnavigation of the Four Counties Ring. Later on, I looked up the blog to see when we'd left, and found that it was exactly a month ago. That month being February, in future if anyone asks how long it takes to do the Four Counties, our answer will be "four weeks".

Tixall was quite busy, with a lot of "basic" liveaboards tied here and there on the towpath. A group of them seem to have moved from the vicinity of Rugeley while we were away.

After lunch, we made one more try to find the Essex on the Chase? geocache, and this time we were successful (yay!). We left the "Twigs the Giraffe" travel bug in there, and collected a Winnie TB instead. His wrapping says he wants to go to Australia, which is a bit of a cruise too far for Sanity, or even Sanity Again, but at least we can move him south a bit in the next couple of weeks.

After that it was a quiet afternoon and evening, filled with a sense of achievement. Today has been pretty chilled as well. I went to the village first thing, then we loafed in the boat, doing IT type stuff, Sheila proof reading as well as she could on a slowish connection, and me perusing the Independent on Sunday. We even did some filing.

After coffee I did the regular engine checks and washed the bike. Then I stood it enticingly on the stern, with a notice saying it was for sale. It seemed worth a punt, though there weren't many folks around.

Not long after lunch, the guy off the boat in front started trying to cut up some firewood with a small pruning saw.

It was quite a struggle for him, so we lent him our bow saw, for which he was pleasingly grateful. When he returned it with the bucket we'd also loaned him to rest the wood on whilst cutting it, he'd popped in some of the bits of wood he was cutting as a thank you.

Inspired by this, we set to ourselves and cut up a chunk of softwood three by two we'd found, and split it into kindling. Scarcely had we settled back into the boat than a passing bloke walking his dog knocked on the roof and asked about the bike. He was just starting his walk, but if we were staying put all day, he said he'd call back later. This he duly did, had a couple of rides on the beast and paid me for it, in cash, on the spot.

It's the fastest I've ever done a deal – looks like I'm better at selling second hand bikes than cars, at which I am frankly the worst ever.

So it's been a good weekend all round really. We spent a bit of time working out our timings for going to and from Norton Canes next month, as we want to tie the yard down to a date for putting Sanity on the dock that will still allow us time to get to Crick at the end of May.

This will involve us cruising some bits of the BCN that we've not done before, so I researched possible overnight moorings on the net. I found the page on the No Problem site, thanks, Sue, and also some stuff on the BCNS site.

Having done the planning, I also went to post to the canals-list to ask for any advice from there. This revealed that Yahoo! are having mega problems with the servers for Yahoo Groups. They are moving them to a new data centre, with the usual consequences.

It looks like it could be several days before stuff gets back to normal there, but there's not much to be done about it except curse and mutter. The Braidbar Owners group is also affected, so the email will be pretty quiet for a while.

Tomorrow, we'll go back to Great Haywood, get diesel and a pump out at Anglo Welsh and then set off for Alrewas. The forecast is for this fine spell to break, with a spell of wet and windy weather, but what can you expect at the end of March? It's going out like a lion, as it's supposed to.

Good shopping in Stone, and an unexpected load of wood

19th & 20th March

Yesterday was another early start to the day; our body clocks seem to have anticipated the start of Summer Time by around ten days. We go to bed at 9.30, wake before six and are up and about by seven. Very strange.

It had been seriously frosty overnight, with some rime on the inside of the Houdini again, but the day became quite warm as it went on.

We worked down Meaford Locks, and were soon at Stone. We stopped below Newcastle Road Lock (the one above Stone Boat Building) and filled the water tank, before carrying on down Yard and Star Locks to the visitor moorings. These were all but deserted, with only one forlorn GRP cruiser on the further, 5 day section.

We'd planned to arrive before lunch, but in fact were tied by half ten. This led to a rethinking of the cruising plans. If we could fit in two trips to the shops, we need only stay one night in Stone, thus avoiding a Friday night in town.

Accordingly, after a quick coffee, we made a foray to Morrisons to get the stuff we needed for lunch, and a selection of the other items on the list. After lunch, it was back into town, calling first at the little, almost underground, shoe shop by the pedestrian lights nearest the moorings.

Called Footsteps Footwear, I didn't have a lot of hope that they could supply a suitable pair of boots, but things were getting a bit urgent, as the crack in the upper of my right boot had now spread to the point where they were almost unusable. I was pleasantly surprised to find they had an assortment of reasonably priced boots, not so much fancy walking boots as basic site boots.

Included in the range, however, were a pair of leather uppered Hi-Techs at £40, which for a wonder fitted very well. Having made this good start, we went on to find most of the other stuff we were looking for, so returned to Sanity well pleased.

The rest of the afternoon passed quite quietly, if you make an exception for the Thursday evening bell ringing session. These campanologists were at least reasonably proficient, so no complaints.

A fair bit of IT stuff got done, including catching up with responses to blog comments. In that regard, I'm pleased to say that Jane Howarth tells me she's had a reply to her letter to BW West Mids about the 48 hour mooring restriction in Alrewas (see Adam's comments last time).

Chris Thompson told her:

The enforcement office has visited the site and the majority of craft that have been there for a period of time have been granted visitor moorings from October up to the end of March, this location has not been used for winter moorings in previous years and will be reviewed before the winter of 2009 for suitability.

The notices reducing the mooring time to 48 hours will be removed next week due to concerns from local residents, user groups and businesses that the time reduction could impact on the local economy.

The decision regarding changing the mooring limit will be reviewed in the future after consultation with interested parties and a decision made thereafter.

Two immediate thoughts:

1. When, oh when will BW learn to consult before making and implementing the decisions, rather than afterwards?
2. Since BW decided not to respond to requests to provide a rubbish disposal facility in Alrewas (there's nothing between Fradley and the far side of Barton Turns), it's not surprising that issuing winter mooring permits for the place has resulted in a litter problem. I'm not defending my fellow boaters in this regard, whose conduct in the matter of rubbish and fire ash dumping has been frankly lamentable, but the outcome might have been foreseen.

Whilst on the subject of Alrewas, Jane also tells me that the new dentist there, Dr Ehsan Rana, is struggling to fill his list. Admittedly he's private only, but is a good clinician, and does take Denplan patients. I've commented before on how easy it is to get emergency appointments with him. If you need a dentist in a hurry in that neck of the woods, and either have Denplan cover or are in the habit of paying for your treatment, it's well worth giving him a ring on 01283 791 357. He's got a webpage here.

Today was another early waking session, but as I wanted to get a paper before we left, we loafed in bed, making disparaging remarks about Sarah Kennedy, until gone seven. Once I'd been into town, we set off. It was brilliantly sunny weather, but with a piercing cold wind, such that Sheila, who was steering, had to change her fleece for a puffa jacket.

Below Aston Lock they are digging away at the new marina, whilst above Sandon, just as Sanity was descending, I saw a cow, which had been drinking from the offside, jump into the water, swim casually round in a half circle, and climb back out, for all the world like one of those folks you see on the news swimming in the Serpentine or wherever on a ridiculously cold day.

Presumably one of its mates had pushed it in, but it really seemed very casual about it.

Approaching Weston Lock, as we left the village which precedes it, some guys trimming trees on the offside asked us if we wanted any wood. We'd just passed a boat going the other way, and we both started backing up to take advantage of this bounty. It was quite hard to get Sanity in far enough, but by ramming the bow into the trees with the long shaft, Sheila was able to get it close enough for me to deploy the gang plank and make a slightly wobbly trip to shore.

I then tied the bow line to one of the trees, and the other boat (whose name's slipped my mind in all the excitement, except it involved pandas) came alongside us. Anyone else coming along would have had to stop, as we were slewed across the cut, but no one did. I passed quantities of wood across to Sheila, who shoved some on our roof, and gave the other half to the other boat.

When we'd got a sufficiency, we extricated ourselves, leaving the panda boat to go back in and get some more. The roof looked a complete mess, with bits of wood, the long shaft and the plank just heaped up on it, but it wasn't far to the lock landing where we were able to sort it out enough to finish cruising.

Below the lock we went gently on until we came to the first of the visitor moorings that have been created in the middle of nowhere here, complete with interpretation boards about the locale. Here we had lunch, then set to in steadily improving conditions to cut up all the wood we had and stack it tidily.

In the course of this it got warm enough that I actually unzipped my zip offs and worked in shorts. Sheila was wearing normal Regatta trousers, so was unable to do likewise. I think this is the first year ever that I've ended up in shorts before her.

We're having a quiet night, now, and will potter down to Great Haywood and Tixall for the weekend, before finishing our run to Alrewas next week.

Over the summit

17th & 18th March

Yesterday was another chilly start to the day, but feeling like hard boaters we decided not to bother with the heating. Standing shivering in front of the sink led to some regrets about this, but it was too late by then.

We'd both had a broken night; I've noticed that these tend to follow the consumption of tinned pies. It may have something to do with the high levels of salt, or perhaps the levels of tryptophan in the Oxo gravy. Either way, I think we'll be keeping such pies just as a backstop in future. In addition, the sound of the M6 kept going all night – it's another example of the onset of Spring that we've taken to sleeping with the Houdini propped open a crack again, thus getting the benefit of the dawn chorus, but also of any traffic noise that's going.

Having set off towards Pierrepoint Locks, we found ourselves passing a boat which, although otherwise anonymous, had a sign up saying Fenders for Sale. We stopped and I negotiated the purchase of a new bow fender, to replace my sad effort. At £70, it seemed a reasonable price for a vee fender. The woman who sold it to me was clearly not long up, though all her curtains were open. This is the first time I've bought a fender from a woman in a dressing gown.

The weather had been very pleasant, but as we approached Kidsgrove, cloud began spilling up over the hill from Stoke on Trent, and most of the day was rather chilly and cloudy; very frustrating when it so clearly could have been really sunny again.

The locks came and went steadily. After Thurlwood we stopped briefly at Rode Heath to get supplies from the little PO and shop there, before chugging on to finish just above Church Locks at coffee time. I lit the fire whilst we had coffee, then after lunch fixed the new fender to the bow.

The rest of the afternoon was given over to composing a post for the Building Sanity Again blog, followed by dinner and an early night.

This abstemiousness paid off with an early start this morning. We were drinking tea in bed before half six, and on our way by half seven. We wanted to get up the remaining six locks to the tunnel in good time, so as to get a reasonably early passage. On a misty morning, we arrived at the North portal by ten past nine.

Some boats were already on their way through from the South, so we had a bit of a wait. By ten to ten we'd been joined by Black Swan and Valkyrie, and led this mini convoy through in about 35 minutes. We had a bit of a problem getting into the tunnel, as the summit pound was eight inches down. Sanity rather ground her way over a reef of silt to get in.

Why on earth BW should let the summit get so low, I don't know. It can't be traffic – the stoppages either side have only just come off – and it certainly can't be lack of water after this winter. Sheila had problems for much of the rest of the pound to the top lock, grinding over sundry hidden objects in most of the bridge holes.

Once out of the tunnel, the weather started to improve. By the time we'd got to the bottom of Stoke Locks, I'd had to shed my puffa jacket. We had lunch on the move between Stoke Bottom and Trentham Lock, and have tied for the afternoon on the Wedgwood moorings.

The new fender has performed splendidly. In the first lock of the day, Sheila gently took Sanity up the lock until the fender was against the top cill, and then revved up in forward. This is a good doge with a new fender; it pushes it hard against the stem to shape it round the bow. When we stopped today, I adjusted up the fastenings, so that it's now snug and firmly in place.

Tomorrow we'll go gently down to Stone, the final eight locks making a total of 40 in four days, which is hard boating by our reckoning. We'll take a couple of days in one of our favourite canal towns, before travelling the familiar route back to Great Haywood and on down to Alrewas for the Spring check ups.

Up the Cheshire Locks

15th & 16th March

Oh, it is so nice when Spring turns up. It's been a long winter this year, with an early start in December and a long cold finish, but the last couple of days have undoubtedly been Spring. One of the sublime things about living aboard is that whenever the good weather turns up (and we have at least some every year), there you are on the boat to enjoy it.

Both yesterday and today it's been warm enough not to need either the Eberspacher or the Squirrel first thing, though admittedly this morning, after a clear but chilly night, it was a bit on the sharp side. But with fine weather forecast for the day, there's no point running the heating just to spare a few moments of chill changing from PJs to day clothes.

We got away at a relaxed time, stopping at the tip to unload our recycling accumulated since we passed through going the other way. There was a lot of glass for some reason...

We got to the shopping mooring by the Town Bridge in the centre of Middlewich just on 10, when the supermarkets would be opening, it being Sunday. A raid on the closing down Somerfield, together with a call into Bargain Booze for lager for Sheila, and we were restocked for the pull up the Cheshire Locks. The weather continued fine, though with a chilly breeze. We worked up the Middlewich Three, in the second of which I tried holding back in the lock to spare the ailing bow fender. I shouldn't have tried it – the boat surged to and fro, finally ending up against the top cill with a resounding crash.

Investigation below later revealed that anything that could move forward had done so, including the wardrobe doors, the drawers underneath them, the fridge freezer and everything in the kitchen cupboards. The only breakage was one of our wine glasses, so not as bad as on other occasions.

It's now just under 34 years since I first stood quaking at the helm of a narrowboat, but I'm still learning.

Kings, Rumps and the Booth Lane Three were passed without further drama. It was just gone 12 as we came out of Rumps, so I grabbed my lunch between there and Booth Lane. Sheila took hers as we chugged round that odd bit to the west of Sandbach. It's one of those sections that's been raised and raised again as the land sank away as a result of brine pumping, but for all that, it's still pretty shallow in places.

We got into Wheelock just after two, finding plenty of room to tie on the visitor moorings beyond the wharf. I see the Italian restaurant has reopened, and seemed to be doing a good trade with Sunday lunchers, a fair number of whom we saw strolling the towpath later on.

We had a quiet afternoon and evening after our exertions, with the highlight being a spag bol and a couple of glasses of red wine, the last of the bottles of the Fairtrade Argentine Malbec we bought in the Co-op.

Today was another bright start. I nipped into the village to get a paper, then off we went up the Heartbreak Hill. In practice, as I think I've said before, we quite enjoy these locks. Admittedly they are deep, and some are a bit heavy, and there's quite a lot of them, but they're mostly in nice settings, and it's not a race, after all. I did the ten of them today, almost all of them with us, so that we got to Hassal Green by coffee time.

We spent the rest of the morning pottering, cutting up the bits of driftwood we'd collected on the roof, and similar tasks. I also rang BW to book a passage through Harecastle on Wednesday; it's still on winter hours, so not open on Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday, and only restricted times on the other days. In addition, you have to book 48 hours in advance. All this will change next Monday, when they go onto normal hours, and you can just turn up and go through during the day, subject to the tunnel keepers' agreement, of course.

This afternoon we had our first good play with the new vacuum cleaner. The excuse was that we'd changed the bed, and started the engine again to wash the first half of the resulting dirty linen, so it made sense to run round with the Dust Buster at the same time.

Its little bag of tools means that it really does function as a mini vacuum cleaner, getting bits out from between the floor boards, for example, and fluff from under the radiators.

I'm cheating on the meal tonight and cooking a Fray Bentos tinned pie, with mash and baked beans. Artisanal food, I think it's called. Tomorrow we go on up another ten locks to the top of Church. Wednesday will be a long day from there, through the tunnel and down to Barlaston. I plan to do another post on the Building Sanity Again blog tomorrow afternoon, then my regular post here on Wednesday.

Birds, Boats and Bramble Cutting

12th, 13th & 14th March

Made it! It's been a seriously hectic week, with highs and lows alternately, though the highs well out ranked the lows, starting with our session with the Masons on Monday, our night out with the Comlines on Tuesday, and then our trip to the Cheshire Falconry Centre on Thursday.

Regular readers will recall that this was the kids' 60th birthday present to Sheila, and it proved to be everything we hoped. Peter (Comline) picked us up from the Salt Barge at half eight, so we were at Blakemere Craft Centre, where Cheshire Falconry is based, in good time.

The morning was taken up with being introduced to various species of raptor, and then two sessions of flying them in the display area. There were ten of us in all, including two spectators, so just a nice sized group for Rob the leader to cope with. In the course of the morning Sheila flew an African Spotted Eagle Owl (explanation by Rob: "It's called an African Spotted Eagle Owl because it's an eagle owl that's spotted and comes from Africa. Bird names are really not difficult!"), an American Rufous Tailed Hawk, a Common Buzzard, a Harris Hawk, a Ferruginous Buzzard and a Kestrel.

I was able to get some half decent photos which I'll sort out and put in a gallery on the website as soon as I can.

After lunch in the restaurant, the afternoon consisted of a "Walk on the Wildside", taking two Harris Hawks to the Cheshire Scout Camp Site which is about a 15 minute walk away, and flying the birds in the hope of catching a rabbit. In the event, the score was one mouse and a possible frog, but none of us seemed to mind. Rob's explanations were superb, full of insights into the mental life of the birds (yes, they do have one) and salted with entertaining comments.

It would have been worth the money just to hear him as a stand up act, so all the contact with the birds was a bonus. Well done, Elanor, Cathy and Graeme, a brilliant present.

We got back to the boat just on five, and promptly took a call from Peter Mason. He'd already offered the use of an oil extractor (technical name the sucky thing) to get the remaining water out of the well deck bilge after our little water pump mishap. The call was to say that Susan was in the area and could drop it off to us straight away, so that we could return it on Friday.

This was so obviously the way to go that we said yes, but it meant that we had to forget our weary feet and set to with this fiendish bit of kit and extract the last of the water from the bilge. It certainly did the job, and this afternoon I was able to use a sponge and then a disposable nappy to remove the final traces.

Yesterday, Susan collected us and we drove over to Braidbar for the planning meeting for Sanity Again. As was to be expected, this went extremely well. Five years ago I wouldn't have said that their work could get any better, but it has, with an even higher standard of joinery, engineering design and flexibility of approach. I'll save the detail for next week's post on the other blog, obviously, but the plan is to collect the shell at the end of September, and the build will then take around four months, so Sanity Again should be ready by the end of January. So far Peter has met every delivery deadline – an unusual boatbuilder indeed.

We got back to the boat by five and had a very quiet evening: Chicken Tikka Biriani and a couple of beers, basically.

Today it was back to boating. We got away in reasonable time on a very bright and breezy day, Sheila steering. A brief stop at Bridge 183 in Broken Cross let me pop along to the handy Spar in the local filling station to get a paper and a litre of milk, then we plodded on through to Bramble Cutting again, arriving well before lunch.

This afternoon has been for pottering. Sheila did some proofreading, and I sorted the accumulator; the new pump runs at a higher pressure than the old, so the pressure in the accumulator needed adjusting to suit. The water system now works between 25 and 45 psi, which makes both the Seagull IV water filter and the toilet perform just a tad better.

I've also made another attempt to make the bow fender work, but it's really most unsatisfactory. I would take it back and demand my money back, except that I made the thing myself.

Tomorrow we go on through Middlewich, aiming for Wheelock by the end of the day.

Three hectic days

9th, 10th & 11th March

This is a catch up, after not posting yesterday. I may well not be in a position to post tomorrow, so I'll do three days today, and probably another post either on Friday or Saturday.

Sunday night was incredibly windy, and we woke several times to Sanity doing her Onedin Line impression, rocking and rolling on her mooring with much creaking of the mooring lines. We'd planned to go on to the winding hole near Grappenhall on Monday morning, but it really wasn't prudent to attempt it, so we decided to leave it until Tuesday, before we set off back towards Anderton.

The main event of the morning, therefore, was the walk down through Stockton Heath (which has a decent little shopping centre of its own) across the Ship Canal on a swing bridge and into the Morrisons that's just on the other side. Shopping done, we came back to the boat, where I used half a slightly stale loaf to make a bread pudding.

After lunch we had a good clean up session to make Sanity respectable for guests, and then frankly had a little doze, catching up on lost sleep from the night before. It's a handy mooring at Stockton Heath, urban but unthreatening. The only downside from my point of view is that the T-mobile connection is a little unreliable. It's fast enough most of the time, but occasionally 'hangs' and you have to disconnect and reconnect to get it back.

The Masons duly turned up to consume Chicken Gumbo and bread pud, and we had a great time, nattering until nearly midnight. There was much talk of options for Sanity Again, needless to say, and we are hopeful of getting up to Braidbar via a lift from the Masons sometime soon to agree the build slot and the main design elements.

It's looking good for the end of this year, though I'm pleased to say that their orders are holding up well, and a certain amount of juggling of slots will be done to try to ensure we pay at least most of the cost before the 15% VAT rate goes back up to 17.5.

Yesterday we wanted to get right back to Anderton, in order to rendezvous with Sheila's brother and sister in law for the evening (so that's with Peter and Jan as opposed to Peter and Susan).

With the time slots for the tunnels to take into consideration, we got up and got on at seven, which was pretty good we thought after the late night before. We'd tied opposite a private lay-by that had the usual No Mooring signs, and something in small print about not being a winding hole. Looked at more closely, however, it just asked boaters to be careful if turning there, and we were able to wind Sanity quite easily.

I wouldn't want to turn much over 60 foot there, but up to that it's quite feasible. We got back to Preston Brook in good time for the 9.30 southbound slot, waiting for about half an hour on the tunnel moorings.

It was then a steady chug back the way we'd come, on a day which had been wet and windy initially, but which improved steadily as it went on. We made the 11.30 slot for Saltersford with ten minutes to spare, and were tied in Anderton by lunchtime.

After lunch we had a wander round. We'd thought of using the BW pump out machine at the service block in the cause of cleaning out more of the sludge, but the office wasn't open on a Tuesday to sell us the necessary swipe card. We decided to use our own machine again, instead, thus losing BW a tenner.

Back at the boat, I agreed to see if some recurrent dampness on the floor by the Squirrel was anything to worry about, or a bit of condensation turning up. Investigation showed that Sheila had been right to nag me about it. The nice new Jabsco domestic water pump was excreting a fine jet of water every time it ran, and the area around it, against the front saloon bulkhead, was very damp.

There was also a certain amount of water sloshing around in the bilge. We've done a fair bit of bailing with sponge and bucket to get it out, and I scuttled off to Anderton Boatyard to seek advice, and a replacement pump. Fortunately, they had a Shurflo in stock; hire yards are often a good source of things like this as they have to carry so much spare kit for emergency repairs on their own boats.

I bought the new pump and soon had it installed in place of the Jabsco, which we'll take back to Shobnall when back in Burton in a couple of weeks time. The dampness is slowly drying out; at least it's the right time of year for doing so, and there doesn't appear to be any permanent damage, thank goodness.

By the time all the excitement was over, it was late in the afternoon, and I just didn't have the energy to blog. Nonetheless we had a great evening with Peter and Jan, at the Leigh Arms in Acton Bridge. A seriously nice pub, quiet, good food and a decent pint of Robinsons.

Our replacement vacuum cleaner had arrived, too, so we can now attack the spring cleaning with gusto and a Dustbuster, when we've recovered our energy, that is! It comes with a handy set of implements, and though it's a mains lead job, at £30 looks a lot better value than the defunct Dyson at £100.

Today, we started by winding by the service block to bring the pump out point to the towpath side, and got busy. BW were there resurfacing the area outside the block with crushed limestone, one of their favourite materials at the moment. It's horrible stuff, and means you leave white footprints all over everything, but from BW's point of view it's cheap, and that's the important thing to them.

We've boated on to Marston for the night. Some of the lurkers have moved off, and so we are snug on the towpath, though the edge is a bit tedious, with a sloping and broken ledge just below the water line. After much experimentation, we've managed to get some fenders into the right place.

A quiet night tonight methinks, and then we'll see what tomorrow brings.

STOP PRESS: I've just added a post to the Sanity Again blog about electrical systems.

Too tired to post

After an excellent evening last night, that finished just before 12, some serious boating this morning, and a mini crisis this afternoon, I'm just too knackered to compose a post today folks - sorry!

The nice new water pump sprang a leak (or had done so a little while ago) so between urgently sourcing a replacement and fitting it, and bailing out the water from where it shouldn't be, it's all been a bit exciting.

Normal service tomorrow, hopefully

A tale of wood and water

7th & 8th March

Having been up and about early for the previous two days (when there was no good reason to be so) as we wanted to be away in good time yesterday, we naturally slept in a bit. Some of this was down to leaving the cover over the Houdini overnight, as it was wet and windy, so that we didn't get the benefit of the dawn chorus.

In any event, as we wanted to get through Saltersford Tunnel on the nine o'clock slot, we made a quick start and were away just 45 minutes after coming to. For new readers, or those unfamiliar with cruising the northern end of the Trent and Mersey, I should explain that the three tunnels involved are only wide enough for a narrow boat, so passing in the middle is impossible.

In the case of Barnton, it's not a big deal, as you can see from one end to the other quite easily, and it only takes ten minutes to go through.

Saltersford, on the other hand, though a little shorter than Barnton, is distinctly kinked. You used to have to just sound your horn on entry and trust to luck, but now there's a restriction on entry times to avoid mid tunnel encounters.

Preston Brook is perfectly straight, but takes around 20 minutes to pass through, so again there's a timed entry rule. In both cases, heading North you can enter on the hour, and going South, on the half hour.

We had a very pleasant run through all three tunnels and the linking canal, going into Barnton just after eight, and waiting twenty minutes in the pool between it and Saltersford.

There followed the rural cruise along the contour overlooking the River Weaver, arriving at Preston Brook just on 10.30. There was an old unconverted motor occupying most of the mooring reserved for boats waiting for the tunnel, part of the BW heritage fleet by the look of it and full of wood.

It was there in order to unload into a pick up. I wandered along and chatted to the guy staying with it, who told me that the wood was from a tree that had come down in the pool between Barnton and Saltersford. Whilst we were waiting for the eleven o'clock slot to go through Preston Brook, another bloke came along, a BW worker, I reckon, who assuaged any irritation we might have been feeling about his boat being in the way by presenting us with a couple of substantial branches from his hoard.

After passing though the tunnel, we chugged on to just short of Moore, where there's a nice opportunity to tie by a winding hole. As soon as we were out on the broad and deep Bridgewater, the GPS showed how much Sanity appreciated it, with her making an easy 4 mph or more on the engine speed that normally delivers just over three on a narrower or shallower canal.

The downside of the Bridgewater is its lack of facilities. It's not a BW cut, of course, but now belongs to Peel Holdings, having been acquired with the Manchester Ship Canal. We'd checked that we had around 65% of a tank of water before setting off, so didn't make the detour up the Runcorn Arm to the only water point we'll go near during our stay on the Bridgewater this time.

We had a quiet afternoon, cutting up the new wood, doing internet stuff and just generally loafing about.

This morning, Sheila checked the water again, and found that we'd got through rather more than we expected. In addition, the supply of clean socks was running low, and on current plans, we wouldn't be in a position to run a washload until next Wednesday when we plan to water back at Anderton.

35% just wasn't enough for comfort, not to mention the prospect of smelly feet, so we winded and spent around half an hour going back to the junction and up the Runcorn Arm to fill the tank. Naturally, the wind had got up overnight, and manoeuvring was a little tricky. The water point is a bit beyond the entrance to Preston Brook Marina, and there's not another winding hole for some time, so there's nothing for it but to reverse back after watering, go astern into the marina entrance and then head back towards the junction.

There's a new housing estate on the opposite side of the cut, so that the wind funnels and bounces around as you are doing it. It's one of the very few times when I would use a bow thruster if I had one, but in the event, we didn't need what we hadn't got, and managed without any big dramas.

Once done, we had an uneventful motor back through Moore and on to Stockton Heath. There were just a few boats tied here, and we had no problem finding a space. It was just on lunchtime, so I nipped down to the Sainsbury's Local for a paper and some fresh bread. We've still got half a loaf of slightly stale stuff, so I suspect I'll be serving bread pudding to the Masons tomorrow night.

The weather has been pretty grotty today, windy and with fierce but short lived sleet showers, so we've spent the afternoon tucked up in the boat again. Tomorrow we need to go on a bit further to wind, then come back here to tie ready for our guests.

Through Middlewich, and a brief breakdown

5th & 6th March

We've had two days of early starts on cracking mornings, with bright sun melting a hard overnight frost. Yesterday we were away just after eight and worked down Cholmondeston, Church Minshull and Stanthorne Locks, with some very pleasant boating in between them. In fact, it was the best cruising of the Middlewich Branch we've done for a while.

There was a time when we always seemed to be boating it in pouring rain, on one occasion so fierce that my (admittedly substantial) eyebrows filled up with water and drizzled down the inside of my specs, making it hard to see where I was going.

We got to Middlewich by around 11, and stopped on the visitor moorings before Wardle Lock to go shopping. The local Somerfield is one of those which the Co-op is having to sell off as part of its takeover, in this case being bought by Tesco, we understand. Due to shut at the end of the month for the refurbishment and rebranding, it already has closing down sale signs all over it, and about half the shelves were empty.

It was a strange experience going round the place, though we managed to pick up some decent bargains as a result.

Back at the boat, we ate lunch before setting off again, descending Wardle Lock and turning left on the Trent and Mersey. At the top of the three narrow locks, we caught up with two Empress boats, one towing the other, with which we'd been leapfrogging for a couple of days. It seems that one has a defunct engine, and was being taken to Wincham Wharf to be sold on brokerage.

There were couple of BW office types about, one of whom actually had a windlass and helped these boats and ourselves work down whilst continuing his conversation with his colleague and two other folk. It sounded as if they were discussing plans for the Towpath Tidy Week later this month.

Clear of the locks, we stopped on the Town Wharf to fill the water tank. The towpath beyond is being refurbished with crushed stone between retaining strips, but topped with tamped sand as the wearing course. I find it hard to believe that plain builders sand will last long as the top surface of a well used urban towpath, but there you go.

As we approached the Big Lock, we saw Braidbar 51, Cedar, tied on the towpath. As Sheila has been waiting for an address to send them some porthole doilies, we were able to deliver them on the spot: very handy.

Big Lock was the usual struggle, as the bottom gates are still leaking very badly. Shortly after, we stopped yet again, this time at the Council Tip at Croxton, where I was able to get rid of the used oil from the last change, the defunct Dyson vacuum cleaner and some more usual recycling.

We'd planned to overnight just the other side of the aqueduct, but there was no room, so we went on to Bramble Cuttings, another favourite mooring.

We finally finished at ten to four, a seriously long day by our standards, but great boating.

This morning was another start of the same order, with even harder frost and brighter sun. We'd only been going about half an hour, when the engine announced it was feeling unwell, coughing and spluttering, the revs surging up and down in the classic signs of fuel starvation.

I was steering and coasted into the side. Sheila then stood making a noise like a bollard whilst holding the centre line whilst I went through the drill for fuel supply fault finding:

1. Fuel in tank: check
2. Tank breather clear: check.
3. Lift the engine boards
4. Drain some fuel from the bottom of the agglomerator: clean and fast flowing
5. Loosen the bleed screw on top of the filter and pump the button: clean, air free fuel.

Right, it's the filter, which must be blocked or perhaps collapsed

I changed the filter (what a good idea it is to carry a spare) and the air filter at the same time. The engine restarted at once, and ran at all revs without a splutter.

Half an hour later we were on our way again. I spent the rest of the morning listening to the engine noise with a paranoid ear, needless to say, but it was fine. This afternoon, I checked my service log, and found that the filter had been in place for just over 2000 hours, which I guess is trying it on a bit, even if we did get well over 3000 hours out of the first one.

Broken Cross and Wincham Wharf were passed without trouble, and we soon came to the Salt Barge at Marston. The collection of BW defying boats tied beyond the official long term moorings now extends for more than half a mile, the result of BW not being able effectively to deal with this kind of defiance.

Ivor had told us the other night that one of the boaters there is taking his case to the European Court, arguing that BW is breaching his human rights by expecting him to pay for a mooring permit when he chooses not to comply with the continuous cruising guidelines.

All of this, of course, costs BW money that would otherwise be available to maintain the system.

We passed through Anderton just before lunch time, and stopped in the bosky bit of widened cut between there and Barnton Pool. There's a footbridge over the cut here, across which we went after lunch. It takes you to a steep climb up the hill to the top of Barnton Village, coming out just by the Co-op.

We stocked up on some more of the excellent Fairtrade Argentine Malbec they are selling at 20% off at the moment, then walked down through the streets to Hormbreys the Butchers. Here we bought some chicken fillets to use on Monday when entertaining the Masons.

Having got back to the boat with this lot, Sheila did some of her online proofreading whilst I rechecked the work I'd done in the engine 'ole in the morning. When I've done an emergency repair like that, I find it pays to go back over it after the event, in calmer mood, checking that everything was properly finished off and tightened up.

In this case all was well. I drained a bit more fuel out of the agglomerator, being paranoid about diesel bug, but it's definitely looking clean.

Tomorrow we'll do the three tunnels in one day, Barnton, Saltersford and Preston Brook, aiming to stop at Moore on the Bridgewater for the night.

Heading for the Bridgewater, gradually

3rd & 4th March

It feels like it's been a pleasant but not very eventful couple of days. Yesterday we did a load more shopping, this time in the centre of Nantwich, visiting Boots, Smiths and the like. We were successful, as we thought at the time, in finding more supplies of glucosamine for Sheila's stiff joints, as well as a newspaper, an excellent pie from Clewlow's and a loaf of bread.

I used the Garmin to measure the distance from the embankment mooring to the centre – about a mile each way. Back at the boat, we discovered that what we'd thought was a mega tub of 1500 mg glucosamine tablets (based on the shelf edge ticket) was in fact 500 mg of glucosamine plus chondroitin, which from experience we know doesn't do as much for Sheila.

Accordingly, after lunch I trekked back into town to change it. What we were completely unsuccessful in finding was a new pair of boots for me. Nantwich came up with one rather small outdoor shop, which had a limited stock of very expensive stuff. I know Brasher boots are excellent, but I'm reluctant to pay £120 for a pair of boots that are going to be severely bashed about on Festival sites and the like.

There are a couple of general shoe shops, but since I didn't want boots by Manolo Blahnik, they weren't a lot of use.

Also after lunch we did some telephoning – I rang Jenny Black at IWA and booked our camp at the National Festival, and Sheila rang Cheshire Falconry to sort out her day's hawking. We'll be there a week tomorrow, so that sets our schedule for the next week.

We'll go right through to Stockton Heath for Monday and give a meal onboard to Peter and Susan Mason who live nearby – no doubt plans for Sanity Again will get some discussion – then we'll come back to the Salt Barge at Marston to be picked up by sister-in-law Jan and taken to Blakemere for the day out with the falcons.

Today we set off in good time, and boated round to the services block by Nantwich Canal Centre, where, after waiting our turn, we pumped out. By the time we left, we had seen a couple more boats turn up, one of whom was able to start watering, and the other waited for us to move on.

It's been another cold but fine day, glorious for boating. We made it to the top of Cholmondeston Lock by lunch time, and we've spent the afternoon here, pottering around, taking a few photos, especially of the skyscape, cutting a bit of wood for fire lighting.

Just as I was getting stuck into this post, there came a knocking on the roof. We've tied not far from Mountbatten and Jellicoe, Ivor and Mel Bachelor's boats, and Ivor had come for a chat after getting back from work.

Altogether an excellent day's boating, relaxing, entertaining, lots of birdsong and good companionship. Tomorrow we'll press on through Middlewich to the far side of Croxton Aqueduct for the night, and then wend our way along one of the best bits of the T&M, through Preston Brook Tunnel, and so onto the Bridgewater for a few days.

To Nantwich in the sun

1st & 2nd March

Gosh, Dydd Gwyl Dewi unwaith eto! (St David's Day once more). It hardly seems any time at all that I was waving Sheila goodbye to go and stay near Lincoln for Alex's arrival, and that was the middle of January.

Encouraged by the continuing Spring like feel to the air, and a knowledge that it won't last, we made a prompt start on a misty morning that gradually turned finer and finer, until by the time we'd finished it was sunny and warm.

Mind you, the exercise would have warmed us up anyway, as we worked down Adderley and then Audlem Locks. Adderley were against us, but we crossed with an Empress hire boat two locks down Audlem, and after that things just kept getting better. Two elderly guys appeared, and proceeded to help us work down the flight and a couple of other boats work up.

When we stopped on the visitor moorings by the Shroppie Fly, I went and asked one of them if they were doing it on behalf of SUCS or another canal volunteer group, as I wanted to make a donation, but no, they just do it for the fun and exercise. The day before they'd been at Napton on the South Oxford, apparently.

On the way down the flight, we passed Braidbar 102, Up Spirits, and exchanged some quick greetings, then as we were approaching Lock 12, just before where we stopped, there were No Problem and Moore2Life.

We had lunch, and I shopped at the new Co-op just up the road (the Co-op is currently celebrating Fairtrade Fortnight with a 20% discount on some brilliant Argentine Malbec).

We topped up the water tank, so that we can stay on the visitor moorings in Nantwich without worrying about it, then worked down the last three locks, giving entertainment to various Sunday strolling gongoozlers as we did so.

With hindsight, we would have been better going down Adderley the day before, and doing Audlem on their own yesterday, but then we'd have missed our session with Mike and Jo, so the hard work of 20 locks in a day was worth it.

It was a very pleasant run in the sunshine to Coole Pilate for the night. As I said last time, there's a GPRS connection there, adequate but not exciting. We took advantage of the warm weather to clean the stern and bow well decks, and to sweep a bit of the roof. The cabin sides really need a good wash, but with more grotty weather forecast, it seems better to wait until we are in the real Spring, not this pleasant but false affair.

It was very cold overnight, under a cloudless sky, and there was a bit of frost on the grass first thing, but it was still clear and encouraging in the morning, so we were in good heart as we set off for the final run into Nantwich.

As we approached the Hack Green Two, I hopped off at the bridge before and walked down to the locks, past a BW tug and hopper. Waiting for the lock to fill, I looked back and saw Sanity slewed across the cut by the BW boats, with Sheila waving the short shaft around to get the stern out of the offside hedge, but apparently nattering away as well.

When she came into the lock, she explained that Ivor Bachelor had been in the hopper, lying down swigging tea. It looks like he was successful in his application to move from Tunnel Keeping at Harecastle to working on the emergency gang.

Soon we were arriving at Nantwich, where we found a mooring on the embankment, from which you can walk to Morrison's or Aldi in about 15 or 20 minutes. It's possibly no quicker than tying by the aqueduct and walking down Welsh Road, but more pleasant both as a mooring and as a walk.

We've done it twice today, restocking, and we'll stay here tomorrow, when the weather is forecast to be at its worst. There's some in town stuff we want to do, and it makes a break from all the boating we've been doing recently.

Steadily on up the Shroppie

27th & 28th February

We got away to a prompt start on Friday, doing some very pleasant boating on a day which was mild out of the wind, but quite chilly in it, typical early Spring, in fact. It took around 45 minutes to get to Norbury Junction, where we had to queue for a little time for one of the water points. Once on there, we soon refilled the tank.

I took some recycling round to the bins and investigated the chandlery for a vee shaped bow fender. The one I made has proved unsatisfactory: I know what the problem is, but it means half dismantling it to sort it, which is going to take a bit of time, especially as my right shoulder has been playing up ever since I made the wretched thing.

It looks like we'll have to wait until Nantwich to get a replacement. I plan then to leave that one on Sanity and reconstruct the problem one for Sanity Again.

We chugged on towards Market Drayton, which I had over optimistically predicted we might reach that night. In fact even Goldstone Wharf proved to be too far in a wind which was getting ever more penetrating, so we stopped on some rather shallow SUCS moorings just after Knighton, beyond Bridge 47.

No sooner had we settled down to make lunch than John Jackson in Roach appeared coming towards us from the North. I hailed him, and asked about either Excel or PureHeat. He had neither, but did have some Taybrite, so I got four bags of that which should keep us going for a couple of weeks at least.

Having sorted the coal to my satisfaction after lunch, we took a bit of time to do a thorough floor sweep. It gets done pretty well every day at the moment, as it's impossible to keep mud from boots off it whilst we are boating, but this time we took more time to get into all the corners and really clean the place up.

Towards the end of the day, we heard a droning sound gradually getting louder and had one of those on and off conversations about whether it was a plane or a boat. It turned out to be a boat dragging one of the worst breaking washes I've ever seen on the cut:


Note that this wasn't a hire boat or a day boat as we first thought. It was a privateer out of Norbury Junction, and they really should have known better. It's not even as if such engine revs makes the boat go any faster. They slowed down as soon as they saw my camera come out, so the pic is after they'd throttled back.

Yesterday we made another good start. Our habit of sleeping with the over bed Houdini a little open means that on fine mornings we get the benefit of the bird song and the early light, making it quite easy to contemplate getting up and doing some boating.

Down Tyrley Locks we went and into Market Drayton. Seyella was on the water point, and I had a few words with Geoff as we went by. He told me that I had missed Greygal: drat! Seyella was planning to do the same as us, and move on to the top of Adderley for the night. They went off whilst we were lunching before shopping, but when in due course we got to Adderley, they weren't there.

We had a bit of fun trying to find an adequate T-mobile signal, but in the end gave up after repositioning the boat once, and I just put a brief holding post up until we could get this one sorted.

Later in the afternoon, Mike and Jo in Sarah Kate came up the flight and tied near us. Mike told me that they had seen Seyella at the bottom of the flight. The dreaded Shroppie ledge is very wide on the moorings at the top, and they hadn't been able to get close enough in to let the dog off.

Mike and Jo invited us in for a drink before dinner, so we had a very pleasant session with them, catching up from when we last saw them. Normally we make contact during the Crick Show, when we are working on the Braidbar stand, and Mike is on Phil Speight's.

I'd popped a frozen block of veggie curry in the oven before we went, so we were able to settle down in the saloon when we came back whilst the rice cooked, and then have an easy meal and an early night.

I'll cover today's boating in the regular post tomorrow: we're at the excellent Coole Pilate moorings now, with just a GPRS connection, but adequate to the purpose.