Another two days in one

The plan for today was to set off in good time and boat through to the top of Audlem before it started raining at ten. If there were no moorings left there, we would slog on down the flight and carry on to the SUCS moorings at Coole Pilate. Accordingly, Sheila got us going just after half six (it was her day to steer anyway) and I ate breakfast whilst she took us through the various visitor moorings of Market Drayton. It meant that when I took over I had a brief bit of quicker boating before we got to the last stretch of offside moorings before Betton Wood.

It’s not the most atmospheric of the Shroppie cuttings but is supposed to be haunted by a shrieking ghost, though that may well be confusion with another Betton Wood which features in a Gothic poem. Sheila took the tiller back in good time for the Adderley flight. The weather continued pleasantly warm and calm as we worked down, meeting several boats coming up. Their crews reported that Audlem was already pretty crowded with boats ready for the Festival of Transport on Sunday and that the visitor moorings were now suspended through the village.

This led to a bit of a rethink about the plan as clearly the situation was not going to improve tomorrow. Accordingly, we decided to adopt plan B regardless of the situation at Audlem Top. Since I’d already worked five locks, Sheila said she’d do the first five at Audlem and we’d work our usual five and five about that we use for long flights.

We could have found room to tie either above the top lock or in our preferred spot two locks down, as it happened. On we went down – we’d not long changed over again at lock six when it started to rain in earnest, about 15 minutes early according to the Met Office. In fact, it fairly bucketed down for the next hour. Things went pretty smoothly, nonetheless, though there were indeed a lot of very trad type boats tied on the moorings below 12 and again below 13, mostly breasted up. The only real problem I had was tucking onto the water point by the Shroppie Fly to allow a boat to come up 13.

We crossed with boats at almost every one of the 15 locks in the flight but almost all were well mannered and no one attempted to turn a lock in front of us. It was just after eleven when we finally emerged from the bottom lock. The rain had already moderated a bit and it pretty well stopped altogether by the time we got to Coole Pilate. There’s plenty of room here and we’ve had a reasonably peaceful afternoon, though a strong wind has given the passing boats a bit of bother.

There have been a fair few more ex-working boats going up, at least one with a proper Bolinder engine. They are unmistakable because of the hit-and-miss regulator that gives the engine note a strikingly uneven beat – pomp-pomp-pom-pom-pom- -pomp-pomp and so on.

Tomorrow, we’ll carry on to Nantwich. We’re now four days ahead of ourselves so may take an extra day there, depending a bit on the weather forecast.

Location:Coole Pilate

On to Coole Pilate

Although the mooring was very quiet, despite it being a Saturday night (Audlem not a hot bed of wild partying) we both had a restless night, and felt quite part worn in the morning. Fortunately, we only wanted to water and potter on to the SUCS moorings at Coole Pilate, though we had some doubts as to whether there would be room for us when we got there.

At eight, we worked down the first two locks and popped onto the water point. It has not a bad pressure, which was just as well as the tank was quite low. Sheila was able to start a washload running after a bit, and by just after nine we were full and able to set off once more.

Another two locks passed uneventfully, and we plodded on down the cut in very pleasant weather. By the time we reached Coole Pilate, some boats had set off and we found a mooring without any trouble.

We've spent the rest of the day in relaxed style, chatting to various other boaters, drying the washing on the whirligig and reading the Independent on Sunday. On the way here, a boat called Constance passed going the other way, bearing readers of this blog.

Hi, it was good to meet you, albeit briefly!

Also here on the moorings is Braidbar number 14, Colne. We've had a couple of chats with the female half of her crew, another very pleasant encounter. We've also had a chance to catch up with Tony off Timewarp, whom we see about the system from time to time. Like us, they are real wanderers, having just been working down the south end of the Oxford canal.

Tomorrow, we'll amble on to Nantwich, again keeping our fingers crossed that we'll find a mooring. Some serious retail therapy can take place there, our last chance for a big restock before heading off towards Middlewich and the Cheshire Locks.

Heading back to Norbury in the wind

I really shouldn't have stretched that portion of beef curry with a can of red kidney beans the other night. ;)

The wind has made things a bit difficult today, and, what's worse, the forecast is for more of it in the next few days. This wouldn't normally be a problem, we'd just sit tight and wait for it to blow out, but we have to start making our way back to Norbury Junction for blacking next Wednesday.

First off, I steered along the Nantwich embankment (always a draughty place) and on to Henhull, where there's a decent 70' winding hole. It wasn't very well dredged, unfortunately, so it took a bit of persuasion to get round; every time I went astern to pull clear of the offside, the bow started swinging back the way we'd come. Eventually I got the bow through the wind, so that it started helping (this why it's called winding; in the horse drawn days, they'd put a scrap of sail up on the bow to work the boat round).

Then it was back to Nantwich and carry on to Hack Green. The whole evolution from setting off to getting back to where we'd moored on the southern end of the embankment took just 90 minutes. With the washing machine whirling away, we worked up the two locks at Hack Green, gave the Secret Nuclear Bunker a farewell wave and toddled on to Coole Pilate, where there's an excellent set of SUCS moorings, complete with picnic tables and barbecue stands.

Since then, the wind has got up even more. I just hope that it moderates a bit overnight, or the Audlem flight is going to be really interesting tomorrow.

One consequence of doing things this way is that I didn't get into Nantwich to buy a paper. But we have a decent internet connection here, so I bought a copy of the Kindle edition of the Independent instead. It has most of the articles and reviews, but very few of the pictures and no crosswords. At 99p instead of a £1 for the print edition, that's a touch steep; I won't take to reading it all the time like that. But it's something rather than nothing, and much easier to read on the Kindle than trying to read the web version on screen.

To Nantwich in the sun

1st & 2nd March

Gosh, Dydd Gwyl Dewi unwaith eto! (St David's Day once more). It hardly seems any time at all that I was waving Sheila goodbye to go and stay near Lincoln for Alex's arrival, and that was the middle of January.

Encouraged by the continuing Spring like feel to the air, and a knowledge that it won't last, we made a prompt start on a misty morning that gradually turned finer and finer, until by the time we'd finished it was sunny and warm.

Mind you, the exercise would have warmed us up anyway, as we worked down Adderley and then Audlem Locks. Adderley were against us, but we crossed with an Empress hire boat two locks down Audlem, and after that things just kept getting better. Two elderly guys appeared, and proceeded to help us work down the flight and a couple of other boats work up.

When we stopped on the visitor moorings by the Shroppie Fly, I went and asked one of them if they were doing it on behalf of SUCS or another canal volunteer group, as I wanted to make a donation, but no, they just do it for the fun and exercise. The day before they'd been at Napton on the South Oxford, apparently.

On the way down the flight, we passed Braidbar 102, Up Spirits, and exchanged some quick greetings, then as we were approaching Lock 12, just before where we stopped, there were No Problem and Moore2Life.

We had lunch, and I shopped at the new Co-op just up the road (the Co-op is currently celebrating Fairtrade Fortnight with a 20% discount on some brilliant Argentine Malbec).

We topped up the water tank, so that we can stay on the visitor moorings in Nantwich without worrying about it, then worked down the last three locks, giving entertainment to various Sunday strolling gongoozlers as we did so.

With hindsight, we would have been better going down Adderley the day before, and doing Audlem on their own yesterday, but then we'd have missed our session with Mike and Jo, so the hard work of 20 locks in a day was worth it.

It was a very pleasant run in the sunshine to Coole Pilate for the night. As I said last time, there's a GPRS connection there, adequate but not exciting. We took advantage of the warm weather to clean the stern and bow well decks, and to sweep a bit of the roof. The cabin sides really need a good wash, but with more grotty weather forecast, it seems better to wait until we are in the real Spring, not this pleasant but false affair.

It was very cold overnight, under a cloudless sky, and there was a bit of frost on the grass first thing, but it was still clear and encouraging in the morning, so we were in good heart as we set off for the final run into Nantwich.

As we approached the Hack Green Two, I hopped off at the bridge before and walked down to the locks, past a BW tug and hopper. Waiting for the lock to fill, I looked back and saw Sanity slewed across the cut by the BW boats, with Sheila waving the short shaft around to get the stern out of the offside hedge, but apparently nattering away as well.

When she came into the lock, she explained that Ivor Bachelor had been in the hopper, lying down swigging tea. It looks like he was successful in his application to move from Tunnel Keeping at Harecastle to working on the emergency gang.

Soon we were arriving at Nantwich, where we found a mooring on the embankment, from which you can walk to Morrison's or Aldi in about 15 or 20 minutes. It's possibly no quicker than tying by the aqueduct and walking down Welsh Road, but more pleasant both as a mooring and as a walk.

We've done it twice today, restocking, and we'll stay here tomorrow, when the weather is forecast to be at its worst. There's some in town stuff we want to do, and it makes a break from all the boating we've been doing recently.