A quiet day

I started some new medication for my BP today; I was warned that there might be a dramatic “initial dose effect.” It’s not been very dramatic, but I’m certainly feeling quite sedated.

After a good evening last night with Graham and Carolann, and a lie in this morning courtesy of the move to back UCT/GMT, we’ve had a quiet day on the boat, reading and pottering.

We did manage a walk round the nature reserve here at Wolseley; it’s looking very autumnal, with lots of colour in the trees.

Now (yawn) I’m going back to my book, if that’s OK, an Austin Freeman Dr Thorndyke on the Kindle.

A good day's boating to Wolseley Bridge

Just a quickie today, ‘cos I’ve got lots to do, and it’s getting a bit late.

We’ve done exactly as planned; away from Fradley at eight, arrived Rugeley at twelve. Bought bread, pasties and a paper, had lunch, then did a big shop.

Sheila boated on whilst I stowed stuff in cupboards, then I took the helm for the final run to Wolseley Bridge, getting there just after three.

Lots of traffic about on this last weekend of the holiday boaters season, and lots of boats here at Wolseley; it looks as if the Ash Tree Boat Club are having a mini rally here.

Autumn Years was here ahead of us, and we’ve just had a nice cup of tea and a chat. They are joining us for a drink later on.

Plan is to stay here for tomorrow, then into the marina on Monday.

Of dogs and cats

We wanted to get to Fradley by around ten this morning, and I had to visit the surgery briefly before we left. We’d had a late-ish night last night, after going to Sally’s agility class, which was good fun.

Amongst other challenges, Sally made her first attempts on the A-frame, a pair of sloping carpet covered boards leant against each other like giant playing cards; the dog has to run up one side and down the other. It took her just a couple of goes to get the hang of it, but matters were complicated by the fact that we were sitting nearby; on one occasion she saw us, thought “Look, Granny and Grandpa!” and flung herself into our laps.

Having 32 kilos (70 pounds in American) of sandy pawed Doberman cross arrive enthusiastically in your lap, tongue out ready for the administration of Frenchies, may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it got a good laugh from all bar Elanor, who was of necessity sternly admonitory.

I was sharing the back seat of the car with her on the way back; Sally was clearly well exercised, and spent much of the trip home lying up against me, at one point on her back, head in my lap and forepaws in the air.

Despite all this, we got away in good time today, and had a quick run up to Fradley. At Common Lock, a small black and white cat emerged from the bushes and mewed plaintively. There was no sign of Postman Pat, or any other likely home come to that, and we concluded that he must have become detached from his boat. A slip of paper in a holder in his collar leant support to this hypothesis, since it gave his address as “Inchmaree”.

We took him on board and carried on up to the mooring. A call to the phone number on the paper didn’t get through, so we gave him some milk to be going on with, and I went to the shop to ask if he was known, and if necessary to buy cat food. It turned out, however, that he was a local character, belonging to one of the boats on the permanent moorings, and inclined to stroll around the woodlands all day.

The advice was “Turn him loose, he’ll find his way home.” This proved harder to do than to say, since Simba (there’s a novel name) clearly thought that we would make a very adequate substitute for his present staff, and hung around the boat expressing his displeasure, at one point getting back into the well deck and banging on the bow doors to be let in.

Presumably, he considered Morrisons Skimmed UHT to be better than what he got on Inchmaree.

We’ve dumped a huge amount of rubbish and recycling here, and plan a quiet night before an early start tomorrow. We had planned to go just beyond Rugeley, but we’ve exchanged texts with Autumn Years; they are going to be at Wolseley Bridge tomorrow night, so we’ll push on to there for the evening.

Last day in Alrewas, and rugby playing ducks

So it was off to the surgery first thing for me this morning; at ten past eight I was queuing at the door, and first in when they opened at quarter past. The result was an appointment later in the morning, when I had a thorough chat with Dr Mulligan, my regular adviser Dr Mager-Jones being away.

The upshot was a change of drugs yet again, in the continuing battle to make my BP behave. At least, since we’re staying nearby for the winter, it won’t be too much hassle to call back while we tinker with dosages and the like.

Apart from that, not much is going on. Highlight of the day was an amble down the towpath to offload some stale bread on the ducks. Alrewas has a particularly mixed population, a testament to the mallard talent for cross breeding, and they fight vociferously for the crumbs. I like to throw the bits into the air, so that they all swim round madly, in some cases leaping up out of the water in an attempt to get their beaks on the booty first.

It’s a bit reminiscent of a loose maul in rugby, and I have to keep my lips pressed together to stop myself from coming out with a dire imitation of the late lamented Eddie Waring:

“Eaaayyy… it’s an up and under!”

More prosaically, we ran a washload, and the machine proceeded to behave itself on the programme it was refusing to do before. In one way, this is a relief, but in another a pain – it looks as if we have an intermittent fault. I guess we’ll just wait and see if it repeats itself. Once more, it’s a blessing we’ll be in the marina, and can call out the engineer from Zanussi if it starts again.

Tonight we go to see Sally at agility class, then up to Fradley tomorrow.

Into Burton for eye tests

Today we went into town with Elanor. She’d stayed overnight, with Sally, whose behaviour continues to improve; it’s a positive pleasure to walk her now. She still tends to bark loudly if startled, but this seems to be getting better as well.

The main reason for the trip was to get eye tests; I was fine, but Sheila will need new glasses. Rather than mess around when we’re about to move off, we’ll wait until we’re sorted in Great Haywood and take the bus into Stafford, probably.

We took the opportunity to get some other stuff, like a dog bowl for Sally to drink out of when she visits us, and a new pair of locking gloves for me.

Back at the boat, we put it all away and settled down to recover from our exertions. Tomorrow, one last trip to the surgery for me, hopefully, and we’re going to see Sally at agility classes in the evening. Then on Friday, we’ll set off North and West again.

A day spent indoors

What a wet day! It was OK for me, as it was Sheila’s turn to visit the surgery this morning (routine check, all well) and the dentist this afternoon for some work (pasta with cheese sauce tonight.) I spent the day indoors, wrestling with the problem of how to remove the Adobe authorisation from our now redundant Sony Readers so that we can sell them on eBay.

If you have a Windows machine, you can do it with the supplied Reader Library software, but not on a Mac, and a browse of the forums demonstrated a lot of frustration with the situation. I wasted a load of time downloading the latest versions of both the Sony Library and Adobe Digital Editions. Neither Sony nor Adobe really like Apple. Fortunately, good old MobileRead came up trumps with a universal solution; you do a hard reset, which scrubs everything out of the memory, including the Adobe authorisation.

So now the two machines are up for sale, along with a handful of others on eBay. Those near the end of their bidding time seem to be attracting a decent level of bids, so that’s fine. I’d initially complained that we’d be sacrificing the small number of books we’d bought for the readers, until Sheila pointed out that, with the money we’ll hopefully get for them, we can easily buy the Kindle versions if we want.

Elanor is coming across for the evening and night, so that she can give us a lift into Burton tomorrow to get our eyes tested and to do some bits of big town shopping, so we have a bit of socialising to look forward to.

Still lurking in Alrewas

It’s a glorious day, weatherwise, which is a big consolation to Sheila, who is slowly getting over her cold. It’s been another day for low key activity, pottering down to the village for a paper and bread, going for a gentle stroll after lunch, and the like.

There’s a certain amount of traffic about, it being half term, so a bit of time spent at the lock down onto the river passes very easily.

I had my session with the diabetic nurse this afternoon; tomorrow it’s Sheila’s turn to do health stuff whilst I lurk on the boat.

We’re thinking about selling one of the Sony eReaders, since we don’t need two, but want to keep one as we’ve some DRM’ed books on there. Before selling one, we’d want to de-authorise it from our Adobe Digital Editions account, of course, and guess what, that’s not very straightforward. It seems you actually have to contact Adobe via the website to get them to delete the reader.

Weird – with the Kindle, you can do it from the Kindle when it’s connected to Amazon, or go to your Amazon Kindle webpage and do it there. Another example of the way Amazon are just so much more user friendly than the Adobe associated kit.

Another quiet day

We had a better night last night, and Sheila is much improved this morning, though still not firing on all cylinders. As a result we’ve had another quiet day. I made a foray to the village in the morning to get a paper, which took a good bit longer than expected as a result of the need to converse with friends old and new.

First off, Autumn Years was just preparing to depart, so I stopped and had a farewell natter with Carolann and Graham. Hopefully, we’ll see them on their way back. They haven’t yet succumbed to the temptation of onboard mobile internet, so we communicate via text message.

Next, just after I’d crossed Gallows Bridge, I was accosted by Mr and Mrs Rowland Webb (I'm afraid I haven’t gathered/remembered Mrs Webb’s first name). They are followers of this blog, and are making the transition to living aboard in easy stages, so we had a good old chat before going our separate ways. With Sheila poorly, I didn’t feel able to offer a show round Sanity Again, but they too will be coming back this way, as they are mooring in Aston marina at the moment, so there's a good chance of a link up later.

After lunch, we managed a totter down the towpath to the lock and river to have a breath of fresh air and a nosey at who’s about. Apart from that, we’ve been dividing our time between the newspapers and the crosswords and the like, and Sheila’s managed a bit of crochet.

With luck,we’ll be better yet tomorrow, assuming I don’t succumb to the lurgy.

Keeping under cover

Definitely a short one today; I nearly settled for a tweet. We had a great evening on Autumn Years last night, although Sheila had continued to feel grotty with her cold during the day, and held it off with a combination of paracetamol and Olbas pastilles.

There followed a very broken night (due to the cold, not excessive quantities of red wine), and she’s still feeling very under the weather today.

So I’ve been doing the domestic bit, keeping the fire in, running a washload and so on (the washing machine seems happy to do synthetic programmes, just not the 40º cotton), heating up chicken soup for lunch.

The weather has been pretty grotty, too, with only occasional bright spells and heavy showers the rest of the time. So it’s been a day for staying in the cabin with the stove well stoked, reading the papers.

Apparently, some Russian meteorologists have identified an anomaly in the Gulf Stream which may well mean a very severe winter; the worst for 1000 years, making last year look comparatively mild. Gosh, we’re glad we’ve booked a winter mooring.

Back to Alrewas

After a rather broken night, we managed to get up at seven, setting off just after eight. It was fairly straightforward boating in milder weather to Barton, where we stopped for half an hour to fill the water tank.

Then on we plodded past the marina and down the noisy straight next to the A38 to Wychnor Lock. The river continues very low, so no problem to navigate to Alrewas. The first stretch of 48 hour moorings was full, but then there was very little until Gallows Bridge and the start of the 14 day stuff. We’ve tied outside the bowling green, where we can stay whilst we finish what we’ve got to do, doctor wise.

After lunch, Elanor and Sally came across and gave us a lift to Mercia Marina at Willington, so that we could have a mooch round the new Midland Chandlers. We were looking for a cruising chimney (ie 12” high and simple single skin) and a new coal scuttle, since the old one is looking very tired.

The scuttle was no problem, but we couldn’t find a chimney we liked. We particularly don’t want anything fancy, so that it’s not a disaster if it gets knocked into the cut, and all the ones they had either had brass bands round or were double skinned.

It looks like we need to do some research on the net to track down the right one.

Back at the boat, we settled down for a cup of tea and a natter; after posting this, I’ll get a shower and cook dinner, then we’re going to visit Autumn Years for the evening; they’ve tied just the other side of Gallows Bridge.

Chilling out on a chilly day at Branston

We’ve spent the day chilling out at Branston. Elanor and Sally came over mid morning, and Elanor and I popped off in her car to Morrison's whilst Sheila looked after Sally on the boat.

Just as Elanor was getting ready to leave, we saw another Braidbar come sliding past the portholes to moor in front of us. Lo and behold, it was Graham and Carolann on Autumn Years, so we’ve spent the afternoon chatting to them over coffee.

I’m going to cook a meal in a bit, then we’re going off to see Sally doing her stuff in the dog agility class they go to.

A pleasant way to spend a sunny but still very cool autumnal day.

To Shobnall for a pump out

As planned, we went down to Shobnall this morning and had a pump out. They’re about average in that department, £14 for a job that more or less empties the tank and you get just one reasonably thorough rinse. The gauge showed empty at the end, but had started registering by the time we tied for lunch on the Morrison’s mooring, a sign that the rinse hadn’t been as good as it should be.

But then, this is not unusual for a commercial job, one reason why we prefer to do it ourselves whenever possible.

More worryingly, the washing machine is giving trouble on one programme (so far). When asked to run a 40ºC cotton load, it thinks about it, then turns all its lights off and flashes the “End” light. We’re managing by running alternative programmes, but we’ll need to get it sorted once we’re in Great Haywood.

After lunch, we came on to Branston for the night. The boating has been quite hard, on a brilliantly sunny day with a bitingly cold wind. We’re going to stay put tomorrow; you can walk through to Morrison’s from here, so it’s a chance to restock with stuff we can’t get in Alrewas. After that, we’ll head back to that village for the weekend and the first part of next week.

Warm in the boat, cold outside, and goodbye to the RBOA

Apart from the trek to the dentist this afternoon, it’s been another quiet day, when we’ve sheltered in the boat from some rather unseasonably cold weather, latterly with showers. Fortunately, it’s due to improve a bit tomorrow, with sun rather than showers, as we’ll have to move the boat to get a pump out.

The trip to the dentist went OK, though Sheila will need a couple of return visits. I’m trying not to feel too smug; Nemesis strikes all too quickly when it comes to dental health in my experience.

I think the only other thing to mention is that we’ve decided to leave the RBOA. We’ve felt uncomfortable with the attitude of some of its senior officers for a while, and in view of the major changes impending for BW, we want to focus our input on just one organisation, namely the IWA.

So I emailed the membership secretary to let her know yesterday, but haven’t had a reply as yet.

A quiet day in Alrewas

Today saw both Sheila and I round at the surgery, both for routine stuff. Tomorrow, the dentist, :(

Apart from that, it’s been a good day. The washing machine worked fine, despite its odd behaviour the other day, we had a chat with Harry Arnold who happened to be passing on the towpath, and we’ve just spent the afternoon watching Going Postal on DVD (on Sheila’s MacBook, as it declined to run on my Mini; aren’t DVDs temperamental these days?).

I can strongly recommend it to any Terry Pratchettt fans out there. Charles Dance makes a remarkably good Vetinari, despite being blond, and of course David Suchet is just brilliant as Reacher Gilt. We missed the Post Office cat and Gilt's parrot (the one that sits on his shoulder shouting "twelve and a half per cent"), but I suppose you can't have everything.

Not a lot more to say, really. The weather’s taken a turn for the worse again, so we’re glad we’ve got a load of coal and wood in store, as we’re now running the stove all day.

It’ll probably be quite brief blogs for a bit, until we settle into Great Haywood, then I may reduce blog frequency except when we’re out and about.

Yesterday did happen, it just didn't get blogged...

OK, OK, I know, I forgot to blog yesterday. Well, it was my birthday, and in all the excitement, I just didn’t get round to it. It was a really pleasant day, with pressies from the offspring (others had arrived in advance, like my Kindle), and a visit from Elanor and Sally. We had home made chicken and sweetcorn soup with Diablo toasties for lunch, then went for a walk for a couple of hours.

Sally has really come on since Elanor had her, and is beginning to be reliable enough to be run off the lead some of the time. She’s also stopped barking at other dogs and humans, and just takes a normal canine interest in them.

After they had gone, I bought myself a birthday present in the form of the Kindle version of Iain M. Banks’s latest, Surface Detail. We went to the Swan for dinner, and both of us pigged out on the tomato soup followed by the mixed grill.

The MGs are frankly a bit over the top, but you can’t say you’ve been shortchanged for your £11. The only downside is that the saloon bar of the Swan is unheated, and last night was seriously cold, so we didn’t stop for a second drink (I’m not sure I could have fitted another pint in on top, to be honest) and came back to the boat for a glass of wine.

There used to be a fireplace in that bar, but it’s been closed up, and they really need to do something about some heating in there.

This morning, we pushed across to the water point first thing, filled the tank to the ¾ mark and came on down to Alrewas, running a washload on the way. Worryingly, the washing machine chose to do the wash bit of the programme, and then stopped, but it did the rinses on the separate extra rinse prog OK, and then spun it down, so hopefully it was just a temporary glitch.

As I left the boat to go into the village, Granny Buttons arrived, crewed by Derek and Dot formerly of Gipsy Rover. We had a good natter whilst waiting for the lock to work; they’re taking Andrew Denny’s boat back to Willington for him.

We’ve had a quiet afternoon, sorting out the bow locker and the like and wandering along the towpath to the river to see who’s about and if there are any winter moorings specified (none that we can see.)

Tomorrow, we start the whole round of doctors and dentists, and later in the week we’ll make a quick break for Burton to get a pump out at Shobnall, unless the wind stays very light, in which case we might settle for Barton Marina.

Oh look, it's Fradley again, after 41,000 hours boating

We’ve made it to Fradley, bang on schedule, after a lazy start from King’s Bromley at half eight. When we got to Shade House Lock, there was Copperkins II, crewed by Ann and Iain Street, who promptly came and helped us down the flight in exchange for a cup of coffee apiece and a look round Sanity Again.

We’ve known the Streets for years, and indeed first shared an event with them in 2004, when we were not long moved on board Sanity.

It was great to catch up and compare notes about the state of the waterways, and to hear about things North of the Border.

Apart from that, we’re having a quiet day, reading the new issue of Waterways World and similar taxing pursuits. The only untoward thing to report is that the engine hours counter has decided to add 41,000 hours to its reading. These digital counters just aren’t as reliable as the old fashioned mechanical ones, it seems to me, but that may just be me being an old fogey; I’ll be 61 shortly after all.

A routine sort of day

There’s not a whole lot to say today; as planned, we set off in good time this morning and boated to Rugeley where we shopped. By the time we’d done that and put it all away, it was nearly lunchtime, so we did.

Then it was on to King’s Bromley, where we’ve stopped on the towpath for the night. Some rescued driftwood was cut up, and I fitted a new head on the deck brush. We’ve spent the rest of the afternoon pottering around doing odd jobs and IT stuff. One thing that's struck us is that there seems to be more traffic since we passed Great Haywood junction than there was on the Four Counties ring, partly because there are now three active hire yards (Shakespeare, Aqua and Canaltime) between here and Trent Junction.

In the morning, we’ll carry on down to Fradley for a couple of days, then go on to Alrewas on Sunday for medical stuff next week.

Hitching crows and nice marinas

With only the short haul to Great Haywood to do today, we gave ourselves the luxury of a lie in, and didn’t set off until half eight. As forecast, the day was overcast and very cool, but still with little wind and no rain, so no complaints.

There were no surprises in store, until, that is, we got below Hoo Mill Lock, when a carrion crow flew up to the bow and perched on the top of the cratch. We have had the odd duck on the roof from time to time, of course, but this is the first time we’ve seen a corvid hitch a lift. I rattled one of the centre lines, and it flew off into the hedge.

The moorings here at Great Haywood are very busy above the lock, with what looks like a lot of potential winter lurkers staking their claims, with an admixture of passing though boats, including Braidbar 61, Shiraz. We’ve managed to squeeze in on the very end, just above the lock landing; we didn’t want to lock down, as the mobile signal reception down there is awful.

After lunch, we strolled round to the marina, to check up on the arrangements for our winter mooring. As expected, they were very welcoming, and we were able to see the place where we will be stopping. If you can divide marinas into shiny boat ones and scruffy boat ones, GH is clearly at the former end of the spectrum, but that's fine with us.

We won’t be allowed to store bags of coal on the roof, but don’t need to if we’ve got access to a supply anyway. The WiFi service is marina wide (some of them only provide it near the office building), and is about average in price, very like the O2 PAYG deal in fact. Whether we use it depends on how the 3 connection turns out, and how much traffic we get through in the winter.

A query to the canals-list produced a helpful response from Andy Greener about things that appeared on my firewall log. He also recommended a neat piece of software for the Mac called Little Snitch, which acts as a firewall in the opposite direction, telling you when one of your applications has decided to ‘phone home’, as they say, that is make a silent connection to the net for reasons of its own.

Gently on to Weston

We seem to have moved from early to late Autumn in the space of 24 hours this week. Yesterday, as I said, was gloriously warm and sunny, and today, though not windy, was overcast and very cold. Indeed, the predicted maximum temperature for today was lower than the overnight minima last week.

No matter, we still had some very pleasant boating, just needed to be well wrapped up, and it made the cup of soup with lunch not only justified but very welcome. What was also welcome was the discovery that the system by which heat from the engine coolant is used to warm the radiators worked extremely well, so that we felt no need to light the stove until we’d stopped boating.

It’s warmed up outside a bit now, so we’re too hot even with the Squirrel choked right down, but at least we’re not using huge amounts of coal.

As expected, we’ve come on to Weston; there were a couple of boats here on arrival at twelve, but one of them, Lee, has moved on. The other appears to have been left unattended for a bit, so we’ve tied just in front of it.

The rest of the day has been taken up with pottering indoors, moving more content onto the Kindles and the like. In addition, I changed the nut plus locknut arrangement on the stern gland for the Nylok nuts Peter got for me whilst we were in the yard, to see if that improves its performance. I suspect we just have a rather wet stern gland, and will have to get used to running the bilge pump from time to time. It may settle yet, of course. Sanity had a particularly dry stern bilge, so this is a bit of a change for us.

I trimmed Sheila’s hair just now, and we’ll indulge ourselves with the first stew of the cold season this evening. (There’s no link between these two events.)

We’re now rather ahead of ourselves, as we don’t need to be in Alrewas until Sunday, so we’ll just potter down to Great Haywood tomorrow, I expect.

On to Stone in glorious weather

As I’ve said before, the great thing about living aboard so as to boat all the time is that, when the good weather arrives, there you are, boating in it. This was definitely the case today; glorious sunshine, almost no wind to speak of*, and a steady bit of boating along a route we know well.

As yesterday, we set off at eight and arrived at the top of Stoke locks just after nine. Some were with us, and some against us, forming no logical pattern that we could see, this being the usual state of affairs on this flight. Some of the locks have leaking top gates and are full when you expect them to be empty, and some have leaking bottom gates and are empty when the logic of the passing traffic says they should be full.

The only untoward incident came in the fourth one down, the one with a railway bridge across the tail. Sanity Again was sinking uneventfully down the emptying lock when she decided to roll over onto her starboard side. There was no sign of any obstruction, and Sheila just had time to sound the horn to attract my attention to the situation when the boat rolled back and carried on down as if nothing had happened.

No damage done; a folding chair fell over inside, and one porthole doily fell out, but that’s all. As before in such situations, the solid construction of doors and drawers meant that nothing flew open or fell out.

Sheila was shaken, but carried on.We stopped for lunch at Barlaston, then plodded on down the Meaford flight to tie at the top of Stone, opposite Roger Fuller’s yard. We’ve done a bit of shopping, and plan to carry on to Great Haywood in the morning.

*Note for John Campbell: the Gaviscon helps.

Heading south through Harecastle

It’s been a day of straightforward boating; up at seven, away at eight and arriving at Harecastle just after half eleven. We had to wait around half an hour, then Sheila took Sanity Again into the tunnel just after twelve. We took around forty minutes to get through, so I had time to eat lunch. At the other end, we stopped to fill the water tank and Sheila ate.

A gentle chug along the summit pound brought us to Westport Lake. We haven't stopped here for ages, not since our OwnerShips days. There’s a good length of mooring on rings, though they are an example of genius spacing, inconvenient for all standard lengths of narrowboat, and it helps to have fenders on cabin rail hooks, as the edge is high, and a bit odd.

It was a lovely day for a stroll round the lake, which has a population of all the usual suspects, birdwise, but we did manage to spot a pair of Pochard. Added to the cormorant at Macclesfield (picture added to yesterday’s blog), we're having a bit of an odd bird trip. Long may it last.

Tomorrow, we go on to the top of Stone, so another early-ish start; we’d like to get to Barlaston in good time, so as to have fresh bread for lunch.

Windy Boating

Tying under the Adelphi Mill at Bollington Wharf when it’s really windy isn’t actually the most sensible thing to do, but we got away with it. Actually tying the boat was quite interesting, since it took two of us to hold her, and one to drive the pins in (the owner of the Adelphi has had all the mooring rings cut off because he thought they were trip hazards), and we only had two of us.

No matter, we managed, though it did involve temporarily tying to a mooring sign totem. The boat did a bit of rock and roll from time to time during the evening and night, and lighting the Squirrel wasn’t easy, because of the down draughts, but, hey, we’re still here.

This morning we set off reasonably early. Starting meant pulling out the pins without letting go of the ropes, then jumping aboard and waiting whilst the wind blew us clear of hotel boats Oak and Ash, who had tied, breasted up, right in front. (No comment.)

Then we had a jolly chug through familiar waters, arriving at the top of Bosley at 10.45. The locks were mostly against us, though we had a couple of encounters with boats coming up, and we arrived at the bottom by half twelve. Lunch was indicated, so we did, then came on a bit further to a towpath mooring just short of Congleton. We’d planned to go all the way through to the wharf, but thought that it might be a bit noisy on a Saturday night, not to mention the towering presence of another ex-mill, so a bit of rural peace seemed better.

The wind continues breezy, but not so bad as before; either it’s calming down a bit, or the lower altitude is helping. Quote of the day, from the woman steering one of the boats coming up Bosley, sitting in the open lock below watching Sanity Again blow sideways onto the towpath and stem up: "I'm waiting to get a clear run at it."

Tomorrow, on through the tunnel, probably tying at Westport Lake. Oh and forgot yesterday, we saw this unusual customer at Macclesfield Marina:

At least he can get onto the service pontoon, which is more than any visiting boat could :(

On our way

After an excellent evening yesterday, although we were sadly deprived of Susan’s company, we made a leisurely start this morning. It was likely that Susan would make it into work if Catherine was feeling better, so we planned to take Sanity Again out of the yard, run up to High Lane to wind and return to refill with diesel, since she wouldn't arrive until ten.

It is possible, just, to wind in the widened space outside the entrance to the arm, but with a blustery wind, we preferred to use the longer but safer strategy. In any event, Susan could not be with us before ten, so there was plenty of time. All this worked out as planned. Since we had hardly run the engine except for this one trip, it was possible to estimate the consumption of the Hurricane heater by the amount of fuel we’d used, sitting in the yard and running the heating very day.

The Hurricane has an hours counter; unlike a Webasto or Eberspacher, it cuts in and out whilst the heating is on, so it’s not possible to know how long the burner has been running without such a counter. The answer came out at around 0.64 litres per hour, making it very economical to run.

All day yesterday, and again today, a strange deep twanging noise had been heard, very difficult to locate, but apparently coming from the other side of the canal to the yard. As we boated along, it became apparent that it emanated from the high voltage electricity transmission lines whose towers run across the landscape on first one side and then the other of the canal.

They’ve been working on these lines and towers all month, apparently replacing both the cables and the insulators, so presumably this remarkable noise was in some way associated with that work.

After refuelling, we took it in turns to pop into the bungalow to say farewell to Peter and Susan. It was a wrench to go, we are made so welcome there, but it’s good to be boating once more.

We’ve settled for Bollington as today’s destination; we’d planned to go a bit further, but the delay in setting of, and the strong wind, inclined us to an early finish. There’s a good butcher just down the hill from the moorings by the Adelphi Mill, and an early start tomorrow will make up for lost time.

A final day at Poynton

What a great end to the week, weather wise! We had an excellent time with John and Nev last night, and then did a lot of the getting-ready-to-go stuff this morning. I went down into Poynton to get a prescription made up and stuff, and Sheila cleaned the boat.

After that, we pottered, mostly, having a chat with Peter and seeing off John and Nev, who have gone up to Bugsworth for a couple of days. The only downside is that Susan may not make it to have dinner with us tonight, as daughter Catherine is poorly. It’s a real shame, especially as we’ve run out of time to rearrange it. We must get away tomorrow, as we need to be in Alrewas by the middle of the month for the whole doctors/dentists/opticians bit.

This afternoon was another high, literally. We went up into Lyme Park and Sheila finally got a chance to fly the kite I gave her for her birthday last year. The wind was just right, although a bit variable, but not so strong as to make it risky for the kite, and she soon got the hang of it, steering her Symphony Beach around like a veteran.

It’s definitely something we must do more often; here’s hoping we get more days like today, sunny but breezy.

Even if Susan doesn’t make it, we’ll still feed Peter tonight; it’s lasagne, so he’ll just have to have a good appetite.

Finishing off

First job this morning was putting everything back in the gas locker, the Comastic having dried overnight, which meant that we could refill the water tank, so showers are back on the menu, hooray.

We had a meeting with Peter later in the morning, and agreed that we’ve finished the snagging. We’re going to hang around for a couple of days, partly to receive the last stuff we’ve ordered from the net, and partly for socialising purposes (how unlike us :) )

Speaking of which, we had a great night last night, feeding John and Nev, and they are returning the compliment tonight. Then Peter and Susan are coming to dinner tomorrow night, and we'll make a break for it on Friday morning.

Ocado duly delivered our order; admittedly,the guy arrived at ten when we had booked the 11 to 12 slot, but as we’d anticipated that might happen, we were ready for him anyway. So the boat is fully stocked, except I’m sure I’d put a big supply of Ecover laundry detergent on the order and it hadn’t made onto the final list. We’ll have to get some at the first stop we make to shop on the way south, I guess.

Sheila polished the port cabin side after washing it, and I beguiled the time by washing Susan’s car, as it was there, we had the washing kit out, and it needed it. It’s some return for all the power we’ve used whilst sitting in the yard – we did another washload today.

Tomorrow could be quite quiet, with nothing specific needing doing, but that’s OK, we’ll have plenty to do boating south for the winter.

Nearly there

We’re almost finished here! The gas locker had its Comastic layer added to the floor and about 4 inches up the sides first thing; it’s just a case of waiting for it to dry hard before we reload the locker. In fact, we’ll put a rubber mat and one bottle of gas in tonight, as it doesn’t matter if the mat sticks to the Comastic, and it will enable me to cook dinner. This is a good idea, as Waimaru duly turned up today, and we’re feeding John and Nev tonight.

My repeat script came in the post, as did a supply of Vitamin D for the winter, courtesy of Simply Supplements. We just need to have a conversation with Peter about the cratch (he’s away on a course, Webasto Diagnostics, today) and receive an Ocado order tomorrow, then we’ll be able to set off for the Midlands once more.

It’s been great here, but it will be good to be on the move again, our last serious trip until we settle into Great Haywood for the winter.

Last night’s meal at the Boar’s Head was great – two sirloin steaks, done just how we like them, but for some reason we both had very broken nights, so there’s not a lot of mental energy for creative writing; maybe I’ll think of more to say tomorrow.

Back to work in the yard

Peter and Susan made it back from Spain yesterday; I don’t envy them what they must have had to deal with in the office. It’s bad enough coping with the backlog when you come back to work at the expected time – having had to take an extra three days off makes it all the worse.

Nonetheless, they both looked rested and refreshed, and Peter at least was still chipper just now when we were talking to him. A big chunk of his day was taken up with blog readers Mick and Alison, who are thinking of ordering a Braidbar for the back end of next year. We had a natter with them about the cruising restrictions of having a 60’ boat, and I recommended the relevant ABNB web page on the topic.

We also had a chat about other aspects of being a Braidbar customer of course, especially as Peter was out of the way, so I could be as rude as I liked about him. :)

It’s been a real sunshiny day here, so we got another washload done and out on the whirligig, and had a very pleasant stroll along the towpath after lunch.

We’re off to the pub tonight, as the gas is disconnected at the moment. The base of the gas locker needs a coat of Comastic, since it disappears underwater when the water tank is full, necessitating an extra set of drain holes further up for that circumstance. I’ve not forgotten the review post on the Building Sanity Again blog – I should be in a position to write it by the end of this week.

The snagging list is getting into that chasing its tail situation, where the yard tries to finish it off and get us out of here before we think of anything else. Like they say, you never finish building a boat, you just make a start.

Spending a wet Sunday onboard

Dry day, wet day seems to be the pattern just now, and today surely has been wet. It started in the middle of the night, and fairly poured down for most of the morning. That made it another lurk-in-the-boat session, though we have just been out for a walk up into Lyme Park this afternoon, things having dried up a bit since lunchtime.

So it’s been another day for reading, Sheila pottering with the accounts and looking up the stuff we couldn’t answer in the Independent’s Saturday General Knowledge crossword. Generally having a quiet Sunday, then. I found the mobi version of the complete Sherlock Holes on Mobile Read and loaded it onto the Kindle.

We’re going to move La Suvera back into the yard shortly, after Ian takes his boat back onto its towpath mooring further up the cut. Hopefully, Peter and Susan will make it back tomorrow, so’s we can finalise the snagging stuff. With a bit of luck, we’ll be away from here next Thursday... maybe.

A very pleasant Saturday

It’s a much better day today weatherwise. We took a walk downtown first thing to get perishables, then came back to the boat for coffee.

The second half of the morning was taken up with pulling Sanity Again out of the yard to get a pump out; all went reasonably smoothly, and so much better than it would have been in the wind and rain yesterday. We also paid for a bag of solid fuel (Supertherm, just for a change), a cylinder of gas and a couple of bags of kindling. All this hanging about in the yard means that we’ve not had a chance to scavenge wood from the cut.

Peter and Jan arrived at quarter past twelve, and we went over to the Miners Arms for lunch, returning to the boat for coffee and biscuits afterwards.

A busy morning and a quiet afternoon, then,with a lot of pleasure both ways.

Keeping out of the rain, mostly

Well, the forecast said it was going to be wet, and it surely has been. We’ve spent the day lurking in the boat, mainly, coming out only to greet the returning crew of Islay (Paul and Cherry) and to service her, and then later on to move La Suvera out of the yard and tie her alongside Islay.

This enables Ian Grindrod to bring his boat in for the weekend. The rain wasn’t so much of a problem given that we’d got all dressed up in waterproofs (though my trousers are now leaking so badly they’re going to have to be replaced) but the wind was on occasion very fierce.

Otherwise, Sheila spent a chunk of time this morning checking the bank accounts, her regular first of the month task, and we’ve been sitting by the fire, reading.

So, not a lot to report, really, just glad we were prepared. The forecast is better for tomorrow, so a trip into Poynton, probably, and perhaps taking Sanity Again out of the yard to get a pump out. We’re pushing the tank right up to full, to check that the new tank gauge sender is accurate at the top end. (I.e., does it show full before the tank is overflowing?)