Burston out of Stone

There’s some hope that the weather is going to improve and indeed it’s been a little better today. Sod’s Law being what it is, I expect the really good stuff will start as soon as we are back in the marina…

We’ve had a pleasant day, ambling down from Stone to the towpath near Burston. The water tank was getting empty and more laundry urgently needed doing – it’s been so hard to get things dry in the damp weather that it’s not been possible to get as much done as we need to. So we worked down the first two locks, Stone Top and Newcastle Road and, after waiting a little for the boat in front to finish and move off, tied on the water point.

Elanor took the opportunity to pop into town to do some shopping whilst I sorted the hose and Sheila started the wash load. Elanor was back waiting for us at Yard Lock by the time we’d finished, so it all came together very well. On we went down Yard and Star Locks and along the urban/rural pound to Aston. Here we had to wait for a boat to come down and another, crewed by a single hander, to come up. This latter was called Sir T Fiable and its steerer was plainly determined to live up to his boat’s name, in the nicest possible way, of course.

It is good that the cut still offers a space for the eccentrics amongst us, adding to the gaiety of nations as it does.

We had a further pleasant run to here, negotiating the always tricky Bridge 86 as we went. It's been possible to have the whirligig out this afternoon, long enough to get the clothes largely dry though it’s clouded over a bit now. This section of the Four Counties is very busy today. It’s an ever-popular ring, of course, made even more so by the emergency stoppage on the Marple flight putting the Cheshire Ring out of commission for the moment.

It’s hoped to re-open lock 15 there next Saturday but the movement in the lock wall looks quite serious and I foresee a long stoppage over the winter to sort it, quite possibly involving rebuilding the whole side of the lock and possibly part of the invert as well.

Meanwhile, we’ve got another straightforward day tomorrow, down Sandon, Weston and Hoo Mill to tie in Great Haywood.

Location:Burston

Back to Marple

As I said yesterday, we'd planned to stop short of Marple today, just for the change of scene, but it was not to be.

We made a good start, waking early and getting going just before eight. Sheila winded Sanity Again in the Upper Basin, stirring up a fair bit of mud as she did so. Then we stopped on the water point just before the narrows and filled the tank. The water pressure was very strong; indeed, it kept blowing the connector off the bit screwed onto the tap until I replaced the latter with a new one.

Once re-watered, there was a pretty straightforward run down to the junction – nothing coming, so round we went and I abandoned my lookout position in the bow to set the washing machine running. Two lift bridges and two swingers went by without incident; the last of these I kept open for a following boat which passed Sheila waiting on the bridge landing.

They'd been catching up quickly anyway in a shallow draughted boat.

I'd marked three possible mooring spots on the Garmin as we went the other way, though the first of these we knew to be shallow. So, it transpired, were the other two, at least at the moment with the pound down again despite the further rain. Indeed, at the last one I got Sanity Again well stemmed up and it took a bit of shafting and reversing to get away.

There was nothing for it but to carry on back to Marple, where we found a spot bow to bow with Skye, Braidbar 85, and Martin her owner. In fact Martin helpfully pulled back a few feet to let us in. There's an unusable stretch on these VMs where there's been an obstruction underwater for as long as we've been coming here.

Work this afternoon has involved more ceiling washing, checking and clearing the prop of a tough reed root impaled on one of the blades and starting the next fender.

That took us up to tea time, since when we've been loafing about...

We didn't miss Marple

We figured that getting to Marple between ten and half past would be good and needed to allow time to wind first, so set off at eight, Sheila at the helm. There being no observers, she did a textbook wind in the hole beyond the Deeps, despite some seriously inconvenient trees at the back of it.

On the way there, she spotted a pair of mink playing in the shrubbery on the offside and I got a confirmatory view on our way back. Mink really aren't very nice animals so we must hope that the otter recovery reaches Poynton soon. Otters are much bigger than mink and will not tolerate them around.

We did indeed get to Marple just on ten, having seen very little traffic until we were nearly there. Sanity Again was moving very nicely through the water; repacking the stern gland seems to have had an unexpectedly beneficial effect on her efficiency and all this rain has largely refilled the canal. It's only around two inches off weir now.

We found a mooring just before Bridge 2; as soon as we were tied, I checked the state of play in the stern bilge. It was dry and the prop shaft was just too hot to hold a finger on, suggesting that the gland is a tad tight. I backed the adjusting nuts off one flat each and will check again after our run to Bugsworth tomorrow.

We drank a coffee and went shopping. I got my prescription made up and we visited the jeweller, Paul David, where Sheila got her wedding ring stretched last year. My own ring is now too tight for me so we've asked to have that stretched too. It only needs to go up two sizes, so we're hopeful that it can be done. It has a Celtic knot pattern round it, meaning that it can't have a new piece let in to the band.

After some more bits and bobs we came back to the boat in nice time for lunch.

Since then, Sheila has progressed her crochet and I've finished the first end of the second fender. Hopefully I'll get it all done by the end of the weekend.

It's September and it's Autumn

When I was a gardener, I used to work to a simple division of the year into four three month seasons:

Spring: March, April, May
Summer: June, July, August
Autumn: September, October, November
Winter: December, January, February

Of course, it’s all a bit more variable than that, but it does as a rule of thumb. Today is the first of September, and sure enough autumn has arrived. It was sufficiently cool overnight to make snuggling right under the duvet necessary for the first time in months and today we both needed to wear fleeces whilst working the boat.

I even got my fleece beanie out again.

We had a slightly later start than planned, but were still ready to go at twenty past seven. The first ten minutes were occupied with reversing out of the lower basin and winding, so it was just on half seven that we set off to return to Marple.

I steered for a little whilst Sheila set up a washload, then she took over just in nice time to manage the turn at the junction. After pottering about below for a bit, making coffee and tidying up, I hopped off the boat at the bridge at the start of the Furness Vale moorings. Pausing only to say hi to boat painter and sign writer extraordinaire Andy Russell, I walked the length of the marina and swung the bridge at the other end.

Back on the boat, I got the washing machine started, there being enough hot water for the job by now, and did look out through New Mills and on to Disley. Hopping off the boat at Bridge 26, I walked on to swing 25.

It’s not worth getting back on for a bit after that, as 23 and 22 are lift bridges that need winding up with a windlass.

Well exercised and back on the boat, I stayed at the back end chatting to Sheila, mainly about the shallow state of this canal this year. Soon Marple appeared on the horizon and I went forward again to look out at the junction.

As we approached, a boat appeared in the bridge hole. I radioed Sheila to this effect, but she kept on coming. I kept sending “hold back, hold back” until I thought to look round to see her gesticulating at me. Her radio had decided to turn itself off at the critical moment.

However, she’d got the message by now as she could see the bow of the other boat for herself. A burst of hard astern averted a collision, and the two boats waltzed around each other without contact.

We’d been thinking of watering at this point but a) there was another boat already doing so and b) there was a space just about 70 foot long on the visitor moorings opposite. I say 70, but in fact it was more like 69’ 6”. Fortunately, the boat in front, Brimble, was occupied by a very nice guy who quite cheerfully eased a foot forward on his lines to let us moor neatly.

Brimble left after lunch, so we were able to pull forward just a bit to have a more comfortable mooring. A couple of very short boats have since moved into the rest of the space.

It was cool enough to have a cup of soup apiece with lunch. Sitting around afterwards it still felt chilly, so there was nothing for it but to dig the stove chimney out and light up.

As I say, autumn has arrived bang on time.

Marple days

With just some more shopping and pott(er)ing on the schedule today, we had a lazy start. In the course of two trips to the village we firstly got some more supplies from the Co-op and the butchers and then left Sheila’s rings with the jeweller to be stretched. They’ll be ready on Saturday; we won’t be here then, but it means that we should be able to collect them when we come through on Monday.

The second trip was mainly concerned with plants and compost to fill the new trough. Sheila chose some blue and white pansy type flowers and the hardware shop was able to supply a handy 10 litre bag of compost.

The newly planted trough is out on the roof now; it looks a bit spare at the moment, of course, but there should be enough warm weather to come to encourage the six plants to spread out.

I’ve also been corresponding with Robert Neff at Mercia about the marina’s application for a good tranche of residential berths. What would be helpful would be some hard stats about how many liveaboard boaters out there would take up a legit residential mooring if one was available.

“Quite a lot” is the answer, but so many of us have got used to living below the radar either as continuous cruisers taking winter moorings or else by occupying officially leisure berths that firm numbers are difficult to come by.

Both CRT and RBOA can only produce broad estimates; 15,000 people is often quoted, but that feels very low to me, especially as that includes boats in coastal marinas and backwaters. There have been a couple of research projects published on CWDF in the past year or so, but again without finding very solid estimates of demand.

To finish, I’ve taken a couple of shots of new bits on the boat. The Nasa Marine Clipper gauge is still oddly shadowed; I don’t know where that’s come from as it can’t be seen in real life, only in the photos.

Electrics info and control: SmartGauge, Clipper, Mastervolt ICC

New port navigation light

Tomorrow, on to Bugsworth to rendezvous with the family; if I don't blog, you can guess why…

/blur

Shopping and a result

After a peaceful night at High Lane we made a leisurely start this morning, and chugged the short distance into Marple, taking just on an hour to do so.

There was nice time for a cup of coffee before we headed for the shops with a slightly odd shopping list in hand. On the way we stopped for a longish natter with Paul Balmer of Waterway Routes, who showed us the mapping product he’s added to his well known DVDs. Running on an Android tablet, it looked most impressive – it’s also available for any other device that will run Memory Map.

We popped into the jewellers to ask about getting Sheila’s wedding ring stretched; the actual jeweller wasn’t there, but will be tomorrow, so we’ll call in again then. Then a visit to Boots for T-gel shampoo was followed by buying a new plant trough from the superb hardware store near the Co-op.

Finally, on the way back we called into Harrods the motor trade outlet to get some more de-ionised water for battery topping up purposes; I’ve finally used up all the output from the dehumidifier.

I’ve had a reply from David Baldacchino about the rubbish at Poynton:

Thank you for your email relating to our site at Lyme Road.

 You have drawn attention to a difficulty that we have been experiencing with collections from this site in the last few weeks which has fallen well below the standard we expect  to provide.  This started when our contractor changed the organisation they used to service the site, up to that point there had been no problems.

 After the first round of difficulties the site was fully cleansed and we received assurances from our contractor that the service would then continue properly.  It became clear at the beginning of last week that this was not happening as promised.  There were further discussions with the contractor and promises that the site would be cleared again,  we were let down again over the bank holiday weekend.

 That now being the case we are requiring that this sub-contractor is removed from our contractor services and will take whatever measures are necessary under the contract to ensure that we do not suffer a financial loss – we have had to bring other contractors in now to cleanse the site and will keep doing this for as long as is necessary to ensure a proper service here.

 Our reputation is our most important asset and it is hugely important that we are seen to be managing sites like this competently.  Thankfully situations like this are, I believe, relatively rare and I hope that you can see that we are taking positive action to ensure the problem does not persist.

 I will be recording your email formally as a complaint and will write to you again with the details of that, I thought that it was important to reply to you quickly though so that you could see what we were doing.

Peter Mason tells me that the excess was indeed cleared yesterday and that the skips should be emptied today. A result, then, though I think matters were probably in hand before I emailed.

Back at Poynton for the night

Things went much to plan today, though one unexpected problem has turned up…

/floor

It was Sheila's turn to steer in the rain, so after helping her get going, I lurked below, catching up on email and the like. Whilst ensconced in the middle of this, She called me on the radio; there were a load of fence posts, big serious fence posts, between the towpath and the water, all along the stretch between bridges 3 & 4, opposite Goyt Mill. A couple of C&RT guys could be seen looking at them; are they going to fence off all that bit?

I grabbed my camera and fired off a couple of shots, but when I came to upload them to iPhoto, they wouldn't transfer. I got an error message "File format not recognised". What's more, rebooting the computer later on, it hung on the initial grey screen, very alarming.

Restarting in Safe Boot mode and repairing permissions seems to have sorted that, but the camera is continuing to play silly B's. At times, it will produce files that will upload either to my machine or Sheila's MacBook, but at others it just doesn't play. I've tried reformatting the memory card, but at the moment can't think what else to do.

Could be time for a new camera…

/hmm

All this stuff happened a bit after we got to Poynton, where we refuelled, filled the water tank and moved onto a spot on the Deeps just through the bridge. Peter has fitted the cable to our new ICC panel, and it seems to be working just fine.

Tonight, we're going to the Boar's Head with Dave and Anne Ballinger; their boat, Load of Hay, has just been in the yard having some work done. Tomorrow, we'll amble down to Adlington, then press on to Gurnett Aqueduct for Sunday and Monday nights.

Back to Marple

Despite the grotty forecast, we needed to get back to Marple today so as to be at Poynton tomorrow. In the event, the rain wasn't quite as bad as it looked on the Met Office site, though we still needed full waterproofs.

Just after eight I backed Sanity Again out of the lower basin and turned right into the middle basin to wind. The depth wasn't too bad, and I did my best to avoid hitting the washwall with too much prop wash, as they are having real problems with it collapsing here. It meant taking several more bites at the cherry, but we got round without too much drama.

By twenty-five to nine we were emerging from the Bugsworth Arm at the junction and heading for Marple. Sheila was on bridge duty, and only had a problem at the second swing bridge. It's one of those ones where you use a BWB key to wind a bolt out of the locking mechanism, and the key wouldn't turn. I eventually got it to go by lifting the handle to take the weight off the bolt, and jiggling until the key co-operated.

We arrived at Marple just after eleven, and found a mooring no bother through Bridge 2 (though they have filled up quite a bit now). I nipped off to get the paper, then we settled down to a well deserved lunch, including mugs of soup.

This afternoon, we went into town again, visiting the excellent butcher here, as well as picking up one or two other bits and bobs like a loaf of bread for tomorrow's lunch.

Tonight we have peppered pork steaks for tea, with new potatoes and green beans, yum.

Tomorrow, an easy run to Poynton, where Peter will finish installing the ICC remote control for the inverter/charger, the 6 meter lead having arrived whilst we were away, and we'll probably treat ourselves to a last meal in the Boar's Head before setting out for Stoke, Stone, and points further south and east.

Three days of activity

11th, 12th & 13th March

It’s been a good three days, by and large. On Wednesday night, after I’d posted the last entry on this blog, we went down to the Boar’s Head in company with Barry Cooper and had one of their tasty meals. We were joined a little later by Peter Mason, who was staying overnight at the yard to catch up on paperwork.

Thursday dawned bright and calm, and I had a very pleasant walk down to the paper shop. I took the Garmin with me to compare the distance via the road with that coming back over the fields. In miles they are almost identical; the off road route took a few minutes longer, and is indubitably much pleasanter.

We spent the rest of the morning relaxing, and went back to the yard for some further gardening in the afternoon. It’s very satisfying to give the various bits of shrubbery a good spring cleaning, especially with the sun shining, the birds singing and the joiners whistling as they work.

On Friday, we had another relaxed start, mooching about in the boat until it was time to go to the yard for the weekly review of progress on Sanity Again. As usual, this can be seen in the photos on Flickr and is described in a post on the other blog. In summary, things are really buzzing now and it’s very exciting.

Back on the boat, I rang Towergate Mardon to accept their offer for insuring Sanity Again. As I’ve said on the other blog, I will do a special post there describing our thinking on this subject, but it won’t be for a few days.

Today, we decided to go to Marple to shop, and made a prompt start, eating breakfast on the way. It was a misty, murky morning, though not too cold at first. Marple was very busy by recent standards.

On the way, we passed Islay, the new Braidbar hire boat, tied at High Lane, and she passed us in turn after we had tied at Marple. The towpath moorings are no further forward than they were last time we were there, as can be seen in these pictures.

Thursday 25th February

Saturday 13th March

We got everything we needed in one session; we plan to have an Ocado delivery on Wednesday, so we were only shopping for fresh stuff and the barley wine which only seems to be available from Bargain Booze these days.

As had been forecast, the weather deteriorated as the day went on, with a bitingly cold wind springing up, and I was very pleased that it was Sheila’s turn to steer. Back at Poynton, we went on to the water point, filled the tank and returned to our mooring.

Having bought some fresh chicken and some cooked beetroot, I plan to cook a chicken and cardamom curry tonight with a beetroot and red kidney bean dish on the side.

A bit of boating, and a BW puzzle

25th, 26th & 27th February

The very slow improvement in the weather has continued, more or less. At least we’ve not seen any more ice on the cut, and can begin to believe that we can stop worrying about it. Thursday morning was mild and damp; having gone to bed very early indeed the night before, we woke equally early in the morning.

We had decided to go to Marple for the day, but waited until half eight before setting off. This worked, in that when we got to Marple there was a space on the moorings between the two bridges. This was just as well, as the ones they’ve been working on since before Christmas are still not finished:




What is more, the contractors had left a workboat tied on half of the service block mooring, so we couldn’t have got in there if we had wanted to:



I know the weather has resulted in a lot of maintenance work being delayed, but it really shouldn’t take that long to do this job. BW are notorious for overestimating the cost of volunteer assisted restoration, and this sort of thing explains why. Discussing it with Elanor, we agreed that wrg would probably schedule about three weeks for this job. It entailed dredging out 100 metres of broken down washwall, driving Armco piling along the line, suitably back tied, and then backfilling with concrete. This is the stage they have reached after most of three months: finishing the job with stone coping is yet to be done.

The pictures were taken early on Thursday afternoon, and there was absolutely no sign of any work going on.

Having had a good shop in Marple we boated back to the Higher Poynton water point and filled the tank. We had a quick chat with Peter, and collected some post. This was a mixed bag: the mosquito netting, the butterfly folding draining rack and an unexpected letter. This last proved to be a really nice letter from a couple who have taken up boating after we had shown them round Sanity at Crick Show some years ago.

It is always really nice to hear from folk in this way, and even nicer if we can actually meet them.

It rained hard overnight and on Friday morning, so the set of pictures showing the floor being laid in Sanity Again shows some distinct wet boot prints on the protective cardboard. I’ve described progress with the new boat on the other blog as usual.

In the afternoon, Elanor turned up for an overnight stay and to bring some post. We took advantage of her presence to get a lift to IKEA, where we bought some new crockery for Sanity Again. It was an interesting trip through Hazel Grove and round the outskirts of Stockport as the IKEA is at Ashton under Lyne; we were very grateful that Elanor’s satnav found some short cuts through the traffic.

Arriving back at the boat, we all felt too tired to start cooking, which was a good excuse for a meal at the Boar’s Head and a pleasant family evening.

This morning it was damp and cold; Sheila and I composed the blog entry for Building Sanity Again whilst Elanor got going. We also heard some sad news that Allen Matthews, the founder of Ownerships, has passed away. We knew he was seriously ill with cancer, so this did not come as a complete surprise, but it is still a tragic loss of a man who changed the face of boat ownership in the UK.

One of the items of post that Elanor brought was a package from BW containing the licence plates for Sanity Again. We were both surprised and disappointed to find that the number allocated was 517491, since we had been expecting a number just short of 519000. As I understand it, numbers are allocated in order of date of registration, so getting this rather low number is like buying a new car now and being issued with a 2009 registration number.

We did some checking on the net; Jim Shead’s site indicates that the number is already in use, having been allocated last May, and entering it into the BW licence check page shows that there is a boat with this number with a current licence.

Under the circumstances, I suppose we could just not bother to buy a licence, since BW thinks we already have one. Instead, I have a phone call to the BW licence office to look forward to on Monday morning.

After Elanor had gone, and we had had some lunch, we pulled Sanity off her mooring and boated down to the water point, filled the tank, winded and then got a pump out and diesel from the Trading Post. The wind of course came up whilst we were doing this, which made for some tricky manoeuvring, but we coped with the aid of our 14 foot ash bow thruster.

Out and about in the sun

4th, 5th & 6th February

We’ve been taking advantage of a spell of milder weather, especially as it looks as if we are going to have another period of frost and ice.

On Thursday, I went and got a paper from the nearest newsagent, and we spent a bit of time sawing up the pallet we fished out of the cut the other day. We also took delivery of another ten 25 kg bags of mixed ovoids from Stuart Hooper. We had a discussion with him about some hooks for the end of short shafts he has for sale. Unfortunately, because they are hand forged, they are very expensive at £25 a piece, and he admits that he has had a shaft fitted with one stolen from his boat.

The equivalent from Midland Chandlers is around £10 and I suspect we will be satisfied with the rather inferior product on this occasion.

In the afternoon, we took a short walk along the towpath to Bridge 16, down to the Middlewood Way and so back to the moorings. On the way, we noticed that Otter, a GRP cruiser, has sunk on her moorings just a few pontoons along from us. On our return to the boat, I emailed the Brycelands so that they could alert the owner, but it turned out they already knew about it.

Yesterday, we did our regular review of progress on Sanity Again as described on the other blog. She is coming on well, and the exciting news is that she is going to be the Braidbar show boat at the Crick Show this year. There will be an appointment system for viewing her, and when the details of that have been finalised I’ll take care to post them on both blogs.

Since the bitterly cold wind had died away, we had a longer walk in the afternoon up into Lyme Park where we could see the progress they’ve made with some dry stone wall repairs despite the ferocious weather. The ground is still very boggy, even on well made tracks, and one result of this exercise was to reinforce my determination to get a new pair of boots, since my old pair are now leaking really badly.

This gave us the excuse to do some boating today, when we took Sanity to Marple for the first time this year. Although it hadn’t felt that cold overnight, there was just a bit of cat ice here and there on the water. Sheila was a bit anxious about this, but it never got worse than a few millimetres thick and had no effect on our blacking.

In Marple we were able to find almost everything we were looking for, including a nice new pair of boots. They are HiTec again, but with a much more solid sole and a heavier full grain leather upper. I just hope they last better than the last pair, though it must be admitted that our lifestyle can be very hard on the footwear.

They have not finished working on the towpath moorings in Marple, so again we had to reverse onto a mooring on the Upper Peak Forest, but in a flat calm this manoeuvre went remarkably smoothly this time.

After lunch, we boated back to Higher Poynton; the ice had entirely disappeared. We filled the diesel tank at the Trading Post and then went onto the water point. Having winded at the far end of the Deeps, we reversed into our mooring so that if we get frozen in here again, we can pump out the toilet tank.

The forecast for the next couple of weeks is for -4 or -5 ºC, although daytime temperatures will be mostly positive. Time will tell if this means more enduring ice on the cut; this is proving to be a very long winter.

Three days to cover

16th, 17th & 18th December

I’m going to cover three days in this blog post so as to catch up, having missed doing one yesterday. On Wednesday I saw the GP in Poynton; it’s a big health centre that seems well run, and well used to dealing with passing boaters.

I’m happy to say that there’s probably nothing wrong with my skin, though I’m going to be seen again in the New Year once the scratch has healed. I was in and out of the doctor’s, and able to collect a prescription from the pharmacy just down the road, in a total of 45 minutes so that I could catch the 11.13 bus back to Higher Poynton.

In the afternoon, we pulled off the mooring, winded at the far end of the Deeps and filled the water tank. I then steered Sanity through some rather grotty sleet showers to Deer Farm Bend where we spent the night.

We made an early start yesterday morning and were pleasantly surprised to find space on the visitor moorings opposite the service block just after 9.00. We then had two shopping sessions in the morning and one in the afternoon, so that we are beginning to stock up for Christmas.

They are making steady progress with the improvement to the side of the canal by bridge 2. A lot of Armco piling has been driven and with luck it will mean an effective increase of usable mooring in this nice town. As we approached the work site we were bemused to see that two of the guys appeared to have Day-Glo orange shorts peeping out beneath their hi vis jackets.

The general effect was that Superman had been got at by the Health and Safety Executive. When we got closer, however, it transpired that they were wearing orange waterproof trousers with brown leather thigh waders pulled on over them.

I’m happy to report that our experience of shopping at White’s the butchers was further improved when we were recognised as having bought kangaroo rump there some weeks ago. Apparently we’d been charged for a kilo when we bought a pound of meat and they were pleased to give us £5.50 off our bill this time. An honest butcher indeed.

My physio appointment wasn’t until late afternoon, and we’d planned to stop overnight in Marple, coming back this morning. However, the forecast was for freezing conditions overnight and we didn’t want to get stuck there over the weekend.

Accordingly, when I got back from the physio just before 5.00 we set off into the snowstorm with the tunnel light blazing. (Actually, it went out after a bit owing to a dirty contact. Sheila, who was steering, was not amused.)

We got back to Poynton just after six, winded and stopped on the shop mooring overnight. Being by now tired, cold and hungry, we did the only obvious thing which was to retire on the Boar’s Head for a drink and a meal.

This morning, Sheila went off to buy the paper whilst I reversed Sanity onto the water point. I’d just finished watering and was starting to wind up the hose when she got back. We moved forward onto the shop mooring again and sought diesel and a pump out. The diesel was no problem, but the pump out pump was frozen, so having filled the fuel tank we tied Sanity outside the hire boat whilst we did our regular weekly visit to examine progress on Sanity Again.

After lunch, the pump was still not working, so we have returned to our mooring, and backed down onto it. This enabled us to use our own pump to transfer about half a tank into the septic tank provided for people to empty their toilet cassettes. This should at least see us through Christmas, and we can always repeat this procedure if need be. We are now relaxing with the stove well stoked and the prospect of a quiet day tomorrow.

Passing the time away

6th & 7th December

It’s been a quiet two days, again. Apart from anything else, the weather, which has not been quiet, has discouraged us from much off-boat activity. This is not to say that we’ve got nothing done, but I can’t really claim that it is of huge interest.

Yesterday, we spent a fair bit of time cleaning the inside of the boat, and then after lunch I boated down to Deer Farm Bend where we spent the night.

Today, we went on into Marple with the wind coming and going but never really causing a big problem. I had a good session at the physio, and we got a lot of shopping done.

We had thought about going on up to Bugsworth and Whaley Bridge, but the continuing gloom of the weather forecast has dissuaded us. Instead, Sheila steered us back to Poynton where we watered and collected some post from Braidbar.

They are slowly getting on with the work on the towpath edge at Marple, but there was not a lot happening today. They’ve dug out all the rock and it looks ready for rebuilding the wash wall. There were blokes on site, but the gaffer spent his time sitting in the site hut and the other men seemed to pass the entire morning lurking in the crew cab of their pickup. (And no, the weather wasn’t that bad; a WRG team would certainly have been out grafting in it.)

Presumably there had been some logistical failure, such as forgetting to bring the shovels so that they were having to lean on each other until a supply could be procured. I note that this work seems to be being done by a local contractor, so I just hope that it is a fixed price contract rather than being charged by the day. With BW, you can never be sure.

Meantime, their workboat was sitting on the wharf for the service point, rather than tied alongside BW’s own workboat on the BW yard. It appeared to have been there all weekend, so the service point is virtually unusable for the time being.

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.

Through dirty weather to Marple and back

22nd & 23rd November

It’s going to be one of those shortish blogs today because we’re both very tired. Yesterday, we made a very lazy start in the face of rather uninviting weather. After lunch, we wandered down to the tip with our bags of recycling. On the way back, we took an unscheduled peep inside Sanity Again, she having been spray foamed the day before.

Everything is indeed covered in dense yellow foam, and I don’t envy the boatyard guys the job of cutting it all back to reveal the battens again.

The rest of the day was spent lurking in the boat. Sheila got a bit more fender made and we both did various things on the net.

For a number of reasons neither of us slept particularly well last night, which was awkward as we needed to make a decent start this morning. Fortunately, the weather, although still not pleasant, had moderated sufficiently to make boating reasonably feasible. At half eight I backed Sanity off her mooring and we made brisk progress to Marple, arriving just before ten o’clock.

This meant we had time for an initial shopping trip and then a cup of coffee before I had to get ready for my physio appointment. Whilst Matthew was hauling my bones about, Sheila paid another visit to the shops so that we are now more or less fully stocked again.

When I told Matthew that we lived on a boat, he looked at me a shade suspiciously and asked “Do you write a blog?”. It seems that he had been googling “Marple physio” and had been a little surprised to find my blog mention of the other week.

I’m happy to say that not only was I able to be complimentary about the practice on that occasion, I can be so again. Matthew proved to be as helpful and effective as his colleague and my shoulder is showing the benefit.

Back at the boat, we had lunch and then Sheila winded Sanity, an evolution which was even trickier than usual because of the cross wind, which forced her to turn clockwise in the junction when she has a preference for going widdershins at that location. Nonetheless, she got round without hitting anything and we then sat on the water point for half an hour or so whilst the hose dribbled into the tank.

On physio days Sheila steers back so as not to stress my newly hauled about shoulder. She certainly got the worst of the deal today as the weather enthusiastically reverted to its wet and windy mode. Typically, when she handed over to me to dock Sanity, the wind died away, it stopped raining and Sanity slid into her berth in a single smooth move. Since then we’ve devoted our time to tea drinking and recovery.

We’ve no very firm plans for the rest of the week, apart from the usual Friday inspection of Sanity Again. Looking at the forecast I suspect we’ll be having a pretty quiet time in the haven of the cabin whilst the wind and rain do their worst outside.

Another trip to Marple, and not much progress on Sanity Again

12th & 13th November

Yesterday we made a prompt start on a brilliantly sunny morning (Sheila was steering) and were soon at Marple. The only problem was that being early meant that there was no space on our favourite moorings opposite the service block. Since the weather was scheduled to deteriorate, Sheila opted to wind and return to the visitor moorings west of bridge 2.

I had another successful visit to the physio, although sadly the guy I have been seeing, Alan, told me that he is leaving the practice and I will be seeing Matthew next week. I just hope that he is as pleasant and effective as Alan has been.

Whilst I was paying to be set upon, Sheila made a shopping trip. Back at the boat we had a coffee break and then did a further visit to the Co-op. This brought us to lunchtime; after we’d eaten we started the engine and a washload. Once the washing machine had finished its heat cycle we set off to return to Poynton.

As forecast, conditions began to deteriorate, with a cold wind and smirrs of rain; Sheila’s luck in getting the fine days for her steering seems to have run out. We watered at Poynton, not having had a chance to do so at Marple, and then winded again and I returned Sanity to her mooring in what were now really quite tricky conditions.

It’s a good job we have had plenty of practice at turning her in her own length to get alongside. Even so Sheila had to hop onto the stern of the next boat to shove the bow over into the wind.

Today, we made a very lazy start and then went over to the yard and took a handful of pictures of Sanity Again. Not a lot has happened; as explained last time, until the portholes are installed there’s not much can be done to the shell. Matt has, however, done his contortion act and painted the inside of the bow locker and the gas locker, a process which inevitably involves getting covered in grey paint as you crouch in the confined space.

Back on Sanity we’ve had a pottering and tidying up session. I’ve uploaded this week’s pictures to Flickr and a blog post to Building Sanity Again. I’ve also ordered the marine VHF radio.

The desk has finally been sorted out so that all the knitting of the cables is hidden behind the monitor. Sanity Again will have an arrangement of cable ports and trunking below the desktop to manage these more tidily.

It’s going to be a wild night, so we shall snuggle down in the boat. I got a piece of gammon from one of the Marple butchers and made soup with it yesterday, so today’s dinner will be a couple of bowls apiece of that and some ham sandwiches.

Wet and windy

2nd & 3rd November

It’s been a wet couple of days, but then everyone else in the UK probably knows that. We had a wet trip to Deer Farm Bend yesterday, calling at High Lane to pick up a paper on the way.

We were tied in good time and a break in the rain created a possibility to get a brief walk. We found that there were three geocaches on or just off the towpath nearby, and set out to find them. Unfortunately , they were all of our least favourite type, being microcaches (that is, 35mm film canisters) hidden in places overlooked by houses and with lots of passers-by.

It’s really difficult scratting around in leaf litter or under a bunch of nettles without attracting unfavourable attention from passing dog walkers. We managed to find two of the three, but with hindsight we would have had a more enjoyable walk if we’d just explored some of the numerous footpaths in the area.

Back at the boat, we were glad of the warmth from the stove and the chance to catch up with our reading. We’ve recently found another source of free e-books in the shape of the MobileRead Forums and have stocked up on some more tales by our favourite crime authors.

Apart from this, the other high spot was feeding a large flock of the local mallards from the side hatches. There was the usual scrum (or whatever the water polo equivalent is) and one drake, striving to catch a piece of bread flying over his head, fell over backwards rather in the way penguins are said to do in the Falklands when overflown by the RAF. There was a huge splash and indignant protests from the duck on which he landed.

It was rather a broken night, what with further bursts of rain, people wandering past in the late evening (no threat, exactly, just where on earth had they come from and were going to?) and the fact that the boat tied next to us, Ganesh, was loosely tied on piling hooks which squeaked backwards and forwards every time she rocked in the wind.

Even though you know what it is, it still wakes you up when it happens as you are dozing off.

As a result, today has been one of those days when we’ve both felt rather muzzy and on edge with each other. Fortunately, things have gone quite well. We had a straightforward trip to Marple, where I had a good physio session and we got a lot of shopping done.

There’s a certain amount of traffic about still, and a knot of it occurred by the service block just as we were getting ready to set off. There were breasted up boats on the water point and a boat held behind us waiting to take their place when Hakuna Matata came through, waited hanging on to the boat in front of us and then pinched the space on the water point when the breasted pair moved off.

It might not have been a problem for him, but it was certainly bad manners.

We’ve now come back to our mooring at Poynton. We’re waiting to hear if the shell is going to be delivered on Thursday, and we’re looking forward to an early night.

Nights interrupted by stags and owls

29th & 30th October

There’s not a lot to say today; this post is going to be about noisy stags, noisy owls and a walk in the woods.

When I last posted we were tied at Deer Farm Bend. The herd opposite contained a magnificent stag with a great opinion of himself, and he spent the whole time we were there telling the world about it. When I woke in the middle of the night, you could still hear this noise something between a cow bellowing and a pig squealing. It seems that rutting stags get by with very little sleep.

Fortunately, we weren’t in a hurry the next day and after a leisurely start I steered through to Marple where once more we were fortunate to find a mooring opposite the service block. There continues to be a lot of boats about, but by timing it correctly some of them had moved off their overnight moorings by the time we wanted one.

Quantities of shopping were done and I made another visit to the physio. After lunch, we pushed across and refilled the water tank and then it was the routine of winding in the junction (made more difficult by boats tied in weird places) and returning to Poynton.

Although the fallen leaves continue to make boating a little tricky, it’s worth it for the display of colour on the trees at this time of year. No need to visit New England, just come boating on the Macclesfield Canal.

We managed to get into our mooring quite snuggly; the bar of silt is being washed away by our own boat movements. Last night’s entertainment was provided by a number of tawny owls, mostly going whoo-whoo, but there was the odd ki-wick in amongst them. In the middle of the night, this performance had largely stopped (owls are crepuscular*) but I did hear a couple more shouts from a rutting stag. Either the guy at Deer Farm Bend has a really good pair of lungs or, more likely, there’s a herd about on this side of Lyme Park.

Today saw the last burst of this week’s beautiful weather. We took advantage of it this afternoon to find another of the nearby geocaches and to drop off the geocoin we’ve had with us for a few weeks. It meant a walk down Prince’s Incline, a route we’d not found before and which deserves further exploration.

Talking of geocoins, it looks as if the one we released at the end of March has got lost. It’s been in the possession of the same person for five months now, and he hasn’t responded to my enquiry e-mails. We’ve ordered a new coin from UK Geocaching, and once it’s arrived (which may take a while thanks to the Communication Workers Union) we’ll release it in celebration of building Sanity Again.

*crepuscular = active in the twilight

Quiet day, busy day

21st & 22nd October

One of the advantages of being on this mooring is that we are much less vulnerable to the effects of boats going past as we are tied at right angles to their direction of travel. The night before last, however, saw an exception to this. It was quite late but a boat charged past at such speed that we were first thrown against the side of the mooring and then forwards so that the stem post took a chip out of the concrete edge in front of it.

We weren’t able to identify the perpetrators; it was probably somebody trying to complete the Cheshire ring in a silly time scale. It must have been very uncomfortable for the boats on the towpath moorings.

Yesterday we were asked to move Sanity temporarily to a space on one of the pontoons whilst Iain Bryceland dredged out our mooring. He took about twenty tonnes of silt out of it and we can now get almost right up to the edge and certainly right forward. We’ll just have to hope that the speed merchant doesn’t come back, though we have put side fenders down now.

Apart from that, it was a quiet day of pottering about in the boat. I did a brief post on the other blog together with the original plan for Sanity Again.

Today has been very different as I had an appointment at Marple Physio for 11.45 am. We got away from Poynton at quarter to nine and were mooring opposite the facilities block just after ten. Felonious Mongoose was also there and we had time for a brief chat with Charley and Dolores before getting in some shopping.

I was very pleased with the quality of the consultation with the physio and at £37 a time it seems like a very reasonable deal. I’ve been given some exercises to do with a stretchy Dynaband to build on the pushing around I had at the clinic, and I’m due to go back there next week.

After lunch we pushed across to the sanitary station which is clearly marked “Suitable for self pump out” and did that very thing. We were able to do a thorough job and have got back to the green “tank empty” light on the gauge.

We’d thought about stopping at Deer Farm Bend for the night, but it was very busy and so we have come right back to the home mooring. In addition, since there are indeed deer at the deer farm at the moment and since one of them is a rutting stag it might have been quite noisy overnight.

Sheila left me to steer in the alternating bright sun and showers whilst she started dismantling my failed attempt at a vee fender. The side fender she has just made is now in use and is very effective as long as it’s not needed to sink. Once she’s taken the vee fender apart it can be converted into some more side fenders.

We’re planning a fairly quiet day tomorrow, although we’ll need to nip over to the water point; we could have watered at Marple but don’t like to do so at the same time as pumping out. We may also have a go at reversing into the mooring so as to blow the last of the silt away, but that depends on whether Katalina, the boat that moors on the towpath opposite us, has done her usual trick of moving through onto the deeps for the weekend.

A night in Bugsworth

13th & 14th October

Following through on the decision to visit Bugsworth Basin for the first time this year, we’d moored on the Upper Peak Forest Canal just a little bit before the first lift bridge, number 22. With just a couple of hours boating to do, we made a relaxed start and chugged our way up this always shallow canal.

Sheila was steering, so it fell to me to work the bridges, first the two lift bridges and then the swingers. BW have done some good work here, squeezing in small landing platforms with a single bollard on the offside of each bridge. Unlike the provision of bollards on narrow lock sides, this is something that has been seen as useful (especially for single handers) for many years.

These bridges can be quite heavy to work, but although not light they didn’t present any particular problems this time.

We duly passed the Swizzels Matlow factory with its evocative smells of penny sweets, and were soon idling past the long length of moorings at Furness Vale. At the far end a very shiny boat was just about to set off. This proved to be Streamline, the boat on which we first had a share some twelve years ago. Apparently she has just had a repeat of her Andy Russell paint job which explains her particularly smart appearance.

Shortly after Furness Vale we struggled past the length of canal which was the subject of some experimental planting on the off side. It’s a kind of willow which looks remarkably like bamboo and which is supposed to be good at protecting the bank. Unfortunately, it’s all flopped over so that there is just a bare boats width of clear channel. Since this length bends steadily it makes for tricky navigation.

When we got to Bugsworth, we found members of the Inland Waterways Protection Society busy doing minor maintenance. We had a chat with them whilst on the water point; they had some bad news, in that a newly laid patio area has suffered the attention not so much of vandals as of straightforward criminals. About a dozen of the York stone slabs had simply disappeared one night and have had to be replaced with rolled hard core.

Water tank full, we popped through the footbridge and tied in the lower basin. This sounds a lot easier than it proved. As we had turned through the junction, we saw two groups of kids in rafted up Canadian canoes approaching. They neatly got out of our way at that time but by the time we’d filled the water tank they had arrived back at the basin and were now having a merry time.

Their instructors were very happy to move them out of our way; I must say it was good to see youngsters being introduced to the joys of boating in this way and full marks to the YHA for operating such a good event.

As I was setting off to nip back to the Tesco at the junction, Streamline turned up and tied just in front of us.

We had a quiet afternoon; the main event was a shopping trip to Tesco, taking in searching for a couple of geocaches on the way. We found one but the other was a micro in a very nettley area on the edge of the Tesco car park, and it was just too much hassle hunting for it with so many muggles around.

Back at the boat I had a good play with the new toy, including experimenting with uploading photos to Flickr and adding them to the blog. This seems to be popular with some folk so here’s another one:

Marple Bridge 1

It’s one of the set I use as desktop photos; the rest are on Flickr here.

This morning we had planned to moor on the old long term moorings on the offside just on the Bugsworth side of the junction, which we reckoned would be the best place whilst we did another Tesco shop. These moorings seem only to have one boat there permanently now. Unfortunately we just couldn’t get close enough to the bank to make it worth the bother and we went on to shop at the Marple Co-op instead.

We could of course have turned left to see if we could find a mooring on the Whaley Bridge arm, from where there is another approach to Tesco. The problem is that those moorings are often busy and it would have meant winding yet again in the basin at Whaley Bridge.

We had a pleasant run back to Marple on a mild and misty autumnal day. Streamline followed us later and like us stopped for lunch and a shop in Marple.

We have come on just a little way towards Poynton, tying on the Armco just after bridge 6, and we’ll carry on back to our mooring tomorrow.