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.