Busy doing nothing....

.....working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do.

My excuse anyway for not posting. I'm sure lots of you have been unable to get to sleep at night awaiting the next exciting instalment so my apologies for the delay but here it is:

We are currently at Marple on the outskirts of Stockton/Manchester. Not where we had originally planned to be but with all the rain we have been covering more ground (or water) than we had thought likely so have diverted up the Macclesfield canal and are in our way to the end of the Peak Forest. We have had a great week of weather although it is pouring with rain at the time of writing this (Saturday evening).

Before coming up the Mac we went almost to the end of the Trent and Mersey to visit the Anderton Boat lift, a huge structure which was renovated with Lottery money and now lifts boats from the River Weaver up to the canal. On the way back we did our good Samaritan act and rescued a hire boat that had managed to run aground.

We then went down "Heartbreak Hill"  a set of 26 locks in fairly close proximity but we took our time and did it over 3 days and it wasn't too bad - at least for me (David) as I was steering. Found a really good restaurant at Lock 57 on the T & M which we would thoroughly recommend.

A visit to Little Morton Hall last weekend was interesting a very ornate black and white building in the ownership of the National Trust - see below.

Little Morton Hall

Little Morton Hall

The following day we walked up to Mow Cop a local landmark topped by a 18th century folly and the site of the first primitive Methodist church meeting which lasted 14hours!. Quite a climb but the views were stunning as you can see.

View from the top of Mow Cop

The Folly at Mow Cop (thats the building not Sarah!)

The Summit Mow Cop

The rest has been a leisurely and stress free trip - Oh, apart from the day when we were moored up and it being good weather we decided to clean the boat, so whilst I was doing the outside Sarah was cleaning the portholes and I suddenly saw the glass from one doing a graceful ark past me and straight into the canal (we were moored on a slight curve and of course the glass found the gap. We poked around for about half an hour without any success in finding it so the following a day a call to the boatbuilder and then a call to the manufacturer and they arranged to send out a replacement. It's really strange because looking at all the other portholes it looks impossible for the glass to come out  that way, but then it was Sarah cleaning the windows!

The Hovis Building on the Maccelsfield Canal

Tomorrow we plan to move on to Bugsworth Basin and hopefully stop there for a few days and get some walking in.

Having written the above but not got round to posting it a further update:

We are now at Bugsworth Basin a really interesting historical site. Arrived yesterday (Sunday) and managed to avoid being out in most of the thunder storms and got moored up just before more torrential rain. It cleared later and we walked the dogs and then had a drink at the Navigation Pub on the basin, great bear and more like Crufts than a pub as I've never seen so many dogs in a pub!

Woke this morning (Monday) to more torrential rain but it has actually eased now and the sun is peeping through, best get out and make the most of it.

Part of Posset Bridge at Marple

Moored on the Peak Forest

Man overboard!

It had to happen some time. The only real question was when and who. Well it fell to Teasle to be the first to fall in whilst we were on the move. It happened today - Friday 13th appropriately - all's well but it was a bit of an adrenalin pump for a bit especially as it happened just after we had gone round a sharp bend and I knew we had a boat following us. Good old Teasle though, although she is reputed to be not the sharpest tool in the box swam gamely to the towpath side and tried to scramble out. She couldn't make it as the edge was quite high and concrete but I had dropped Sarah off and she managed to lift her out. What we would have done if she had gone the other way I'm not sure as there were very thick reed beds on that side and I would have had great trouble in getting the boat in there. Anyway apart from the initial fright everything was OK.

We are currently heading up towards the Anderton Lift although not going down onto the River Weaver. We will have a look round and then retrace our steps passed Middlewich and probably onto the Caldon.

Middlewich is a small pleasant town in the middle of Cheshire and we went in to do some shopping, got talking to the butcher who just happened to have spent a lot of his childhood holidays staying with family in Bungay! What a small world.

Yesterday - Thursday was glorious; such a welcome break from the cloud and rain. We were moored up a few miles north of Middlewich in a very rural quiet location and enjoyed a day of sitting in the sun and a bit of boat cleaning and polishing. Its still a new toy so I actually enjoyed the polishing! Not sure how long that will last.

Today the weather has returned to being foul. We had planned to visit a salt museum (historically this area was a great producer of salt and there are large lagoons called Flashes where the earth has subsided and they have filled with water but are very shallow) However having got there and moored up in the pouring rain we discovered that it is closed for renovation till 2014 - a bit long to wait.

We are currently moored next to the Marbury Country Park and it looks as though it could be a delightful area to explore but at the moment we have lit the fire and closed the hatches and are trying not to look out of the windows at the incessant rain.

BLUE SKIES!

One of the numerous "flashes" caused by subsidence due to the salt mines

A week around Chester

Arriving at Chester on the Monday we found a mooring right in the city centre literally yards from the shops and spent a couple of nights there. The dogs weren't frightfully impressed as there were no rabbits around and very little grass but they did perk up when we found some squirrels in one of the parks. Chester is a really lovely city with a history that reaches back to the Romans and has a city wall which is virtually intact and you can walk right round the city on it. The dogs were not impressed by this either!

We then went on to the end of the Shropshire Union canal where it meets the Manchester Ship canal and spent a night there and had a wander around the Canal museum which was interesting, not least because whilst there the fire alarm went off and we had to be evacuated. It turned out to be a false alarm but trust the Ruddles to get caught in the middle of it! We then returned to Chester with the idea of stocking up and moving on the following morning (Friday) but this was such an appalling day that we sat tight. It was so bad that I said to Sarah in the morning that I would put the satellite dish up during a break in the rain so that we could watch Wimbledon but that beak never came so the ariel didn't go up.

We moved on on the Saturday, a quite pleasant day; came through the locks with another boat with a Gardner engine chugging away and stopped for the night at The Shady Oak at Beeston and had a few jars with the couple from the other boat. Sunday then saw us visiting Beeston Castle and although its a bit of a steep climb the views from the top are magnificent, you can see all the way to Liverpool, Joderall Bank and a total of 8 counties. It was a sunny morning which was good but by the afternoon the rain had returned so we depressed ourselves by watching Andy Murray lose at Wimbledon.

Approaching Chester

Steam Mill at Chester

Black and White buildings everywhere!

River Dee at Chester

More Black and White buildings!

Magnificent Organ in the Cathedral

Teazle and Tansies favourite bit of the day

The canal next to the City wall

An early morning visitor

From Beeston Castle

and again

and again - masses of rabbits here so they enjoyed the walk!

Beady eye on our Banana's

A tale of two cities - well, towns anyway

The journey up to Market Bosworth was fasinating with some very unusual bridges (see below) and a very narrow part of the canal chanelled out of a very rocky area.

We duly arrived at Market Bosworth and found a good mooring near the town but were most disappointed in the town itself. There were a few attractive buildings but basically it had the air of a rather faded, run down town. On the Sunday I took the dogs for a walk over what I thought would be some quiet country but got closer and closer to loud motorcyle engines revving to eventually realise that there was a motor cycle scramble going on. So once I finished the walk I went back to have a look and spent a couple of hours enjoying watching other people getting very dirty.

We moved on on Monday (after buying yet another bag of dog food) through 5 locks and stopped for the night near the village of Adderley Decided to stay there for the day and had a wander up to the village which was nothing special and then moved on on Wednesday to the 15 lock flight leading into Audlem. We had a good run through the locks with plenty of boats going the other way which helped getting the locks set without too much work and stopped after 11 locks for the night and went for a meal in the Shroppie Fly, a pub converted from an old warehouse on the quay side with a bar built like a narrowboat - sounds a bit twee but an alright meal and good beer. Fly in this context refers to fast boats which were used to carry perishable goods and other urgent cargos and used to run 24 hours a day with different crews.

On the following morning we set off  to go through the other 3 locks in the flight and then after passing the secret nuclear bunker at Hack Green (Seems a bit strange to call it secret when there are large signs advertising its presence) two more before mooring up at Nantwich. After Market Drayton our expectations were not high for this town but that was a mistake. It really is a very attractive town with a pedestrianised shopping centre, lots of good independant stores, very clean and very attractive 16th century buildings. Could certainly live there.

We had decided earlier in the week on a change of plan. We had spoken to a number of boaters who had come back from the Llangolen all saying how crowded and difficult it was so we have decided to leave that for another day when we can go out of season and will now be going on to Chester and Ellesmere Port. So Friday saw us pass the junction with the Llangollen and moor at Barbridge Junction where the Shroppie main line meets the Middlewich branch. Moored opposite a pub which went down dramatically in our estimation when they wouldn't allow the dogs in although the guide book says they are dog friendly. I suspect they have had a makeover since the book was wriiten but the beer and the wine were not really very special either.

Saturday saw us continuing north and on to Tiverton a lovely rural mooring with very moor like land opposite with sheep grazing. Made us think we really were getting into the wilds. The ruins of Beeston Castle tower over the area and some large earth works we saw we thought were something to do with it until reading the information board we found there were to do with PLUTO - Pipeline under the ocean - apparently another "secret" location this time for mass storage of oil during the second world war. It seems that the powers that be consider this part of the Uk to be very remote and unlikely to attract any enemy's attention.

Sunday: starting in the inevitable cloud burst saw us going through three more locks to moor up at the Cheshire Cat in Christelton on the outskirts of Chester. Worthy of note is the fact that one of the locks we came through was made of iron rather than the usual brick or stone. This was due to the problems they had with land subsidence but although the lock still functions it has become out of true due to the movement of the ground and although large enough to take two boats the advice is to only have one at a time in the lock to avoid snagging.

Tomorrow we plan to go into Chester and moor there perhaps for a night or two to explore the town and then on to Ellesmere Port.

Telegrah pole built into the bridge (the rest of the line has been removed, just the pole left).

Cutting through solid rock - no pneumatic drills then!

Mud, mud glorious mud.

A very traditional boat decked out for the Jubilee

The Shroppie Fly pub

Along the footpath at Nantwich are a series of sculptures, this being the most impressive made from reclaimed lock timbers

"PLUTO"

Beeston Castle

From the kitchen window

A linesmans hut at a lock