With hindsight, that wonderful thing, the visitor moorings above Beeston Stone Lock leave quite a bit to be desired. Apart from there being no kind of mobile signal whatsoever (unless there's an O₂ one, I couldn't check that) the edge is that in and out old style piling, the water level goes up and down a lot as the lock is worked, and the Crewe to Chester railway line is just the other side of the hedge.
No matter, we survived, and even had a half decent night's sleep. We got the flapjack made, though it didn't set as well as I'd hoped. This may be because the only oats I had were some fancy multigrain ones from Julian Graves, and may not have been as absorbent as the usual porridge oats, and because we used spreadable butter, because we happened to have a lot more of it than block butter, and the oil in it might not have worked as well as proper butter.
No matter again, oh what a pity, we'll just have to make some more when I can get more oats. The taste is absolutely fine, it's just that you have to sort of squeeze the stuff together to put in your mouth rather than biting bits off.
We both woke early, so set off at seven, Sheila walking to Tilstone Lock and your correspondent boating. It's a real shame that this gorgeous piece of canal is in need of serious maintenance. It badly wants dredging and the locks are very hard to work. We got up Tilstone and the Bunbury Staircase with a bit of a struggle. In particular, Sheila simply couldn't swing one of the intermediate gates on the staircase closed, and just as I was working out the best way of joining her on the lockside, she conscripted a chap walking past to help.
We were both very glad to get up onto the Barbridge level. We stopped a couple of times more, once at Calveley to dump rubbish and top up the water tank, and once just a bit further on where there's a Texaco service station. You can scramble up the bank to the road, step over the crash barrier and give yourself an interesting ten minutes trying to cross the A51 at half nine in the morning without ending up like an unsuccessful hedgepig.
All this I did, and the reverse, in order to buy a newspaper.
The weather has been a great improvement on yesterday, sunny though still breezy, so it was a pleasant run back to Barbridge Junction, where we turned left for Middlewich. You have to start the turn a little before the bow lookout can see that it's clear, and as I did so, an urgent call came from Sheila to hold back. A day boat was just approaching from the other direction. He stopped for us, and we completed the turn with just a nudge of the towpath edge under the bridge, so not bad.
I presume the day boat had just set off; it was crewed by two folk dressed as pirates and what looked like a member of the yard staff showing them the ropes. It must have been a bit of a facer for them; there you are, happily setting off on your merry day's outing in your little boat when 70 foot and twenty tonnes of boat appears coming straight for you.
Everyone was extremely cheerful about it, so no worries, eh?
Having discovered that we had a half decent 3 signal again, we've stopped just above Cholmondeston Lock, a bit before the visitor moorings. After an early lunch and a bit of a restorative doze, we took a walk down to the lock (the visitor moorings were half empty) and beyond to see what a good job they are making of putting new pontoons into Venetian Marina.
Tomorrow, we'll do the length of the Middlewich Arm, probably as far as Blackberry Wood moorings; then carry on down the last two locks into Middlewich itself on Saturday, finishing up at Bramble Cuttings. All we need now are some crab apples, and we'll be well set up…
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