Marple under mildly difficult circumstances

2nd & 3rd December

We made a prompt start yesterday on our delayed trip to Marple. The weather, although dry and reasonably calm, was bitterly cold. Sheila had prepared for this by wearing fleece lined trousers and a fleece gilet under her usual fleece jacket. I was very happy to leave her on the back by herself for much of the time.

On arrival at Marple we found, as Caxton had warned us, that the work on the towpath edge just to the west of bridge 2 meant that little mooring was available; furthermore, the BW work boat was tied on the service block wharf whilst it unloaded some huge boulders. Sheila had handed over to me for mooring, so it fell to me to wind in the junction and then reverse up the Upper Peak Forest to a mooring on the towpath opposite the marina.

It’s never very deep just there, and there are no rings, but we were able to get reasonably close and we drove two substantial pins into the rather muddy towpath.

There followed the routine of shopping, getting back to the boat for a coffee and a warm, and then shopping again. We had planned to treat ourselves to a haggis in belated recognition of St Andrew’s Day but Whites the butchers was closed.

I then did my share of steering in the cold, similarly attired. Back at Poynton, we followed The Big Boat to the winding hole and winded just after her. She went on back to Skye’s mooring (which she seems to be using all the time now) and we waited just a few minutes for fellow Marineville moorer Carbis to finish watering, and then replaced her on the water point.

I took the opportunity of collecting our post from the yard, which included a new toilet seat. Back on the mooring there was just time for the straightforward task of swapping loo seats before I had a shower and cooked dinner.

Those with experience of DIY will recognise the implicit irony in the foregoing statement.

Sure enough, I was just putting one of the fixings onto its thread when it slipped from my fingers and fell into the back area of the porcelain. This wouldn’t have been a problem as it only meant removing the ply board from behind the toilet to get access, which involved taking out four small screws. However, as I lifted this piece of ply clear it fouled the power supply to the macerator and pulled the cable out of its isolator box.

I won’t go on, it’s too painful to recall, and it only took another half hour to sort it all out.

Today is Sheila’s natal day so we’ve had a quiet day after she’d opened her presents this morning. We’re going out for a meal tonight. The weather hasn’t been good enough to allow for more than a brief sally out with the recycling this afternoon. We’ve both been doing our proofreading bit and Sheila has continued to work on the set of coasters she is crocheting for Sanity Again:




Tomorrow we will make our weekly visit to the new boat and I’ll upload a fresh set of pictures as well as doing a post on the other blog.