Into the storm

We ended yesterday in a not-spot, one of those increasingly rare areas where there are no phone signals at all. Apart from that, things went reasonably to plan; we made an early start, Sheila steering, and chugged back along first of all the flat bit, then up a handful of locks.

The chug is slower than it might otherwise be because of the incredible length of offside linear moorings at Hargrave. This is Golden Nook Farm – we've always said that if there'd ever been a Carry On Boating, the moorings could appropriately be called Golden Nookie Farm…

/wahaha

No matter, eventually we arrived at Wharton's Lock. It was still early, and although the wind was getting tedious, it remianed manageable. As we approached the lock, Brian and Ann on Toucan Do It asked if they could join us. It's always easier to work up a broad lock with a companion boat, of course, so we were very happy to agree.

That lock went just fine, but we needed to work up the next, Beeston Iron, on our own. Its iron sides are distorted, and although two short boats can usually get away with sharing, it's not a good idea with a full length one.

I made a bit of a mess of managing the ropes, frankly, and nearly catapulted Sheila off the wrong side of the well deck by releasing a rope she was swinging on at the time, but we got up OK in the end and waited above for Toucan Do It to join us.

It was now threatening to rain, so we decided to stop after sharing up Beeston Stone Lock, there being lots of visitor mooring above; just no phone signals.

/no

I walked back as far as the Iron Lock to get enough Voda signal to text the kids and Twitter, then we settled to an afternoon on the boat incommunicado. It has indeed tipped it down off and on all afternoon.

The time's not been wasted – we've tried making a variant of Yvonne Olver's flapjack recipe, using chopped stem ginger, and we watched the second half of the Campion we started last week.

Today, we're on our way back to Barbridge Junction, where we'll turn left onto the Middlewich Branch, stopping near Cholmondeston.