Bascote (shell arrives in Northwich)

We spent the weekend in North Wales with most of our children at Dominic and Becky’s wedding.  We all drove up from different parts of the country on Friday night – poor Sophie, Polly and Isaac didn’t arrive until gone four in the morning as Sophie had been in Italy for the week and didn’t get back to London until late evening on Friday.  It was a beautiful wedding and it was great to catch up with friends we hadn’t seen for ages.

When we got home on Sunday evening it was pleasing to see that the Sweet Peas had starting flowering.

Must remember to keep picking the flowers as Karen says it encourages them to grow more

On Monday our two weeks were up at Welsh Road lock so Buddy and I had to move on.  It was a pleasant change to get back on the water.

Our first cruise for two weeks

Another single-hander came up the four Bascote locks with us but I forgot that two of the locks on the (short) flight have ladders rather than steps on the right hand side.  Yes, I was on the right hand side and had to leave Buddy on the boat as I couldn’t risk him climbing a steep iron ladder.

The only way up for me and Buddy is up the ladder so I left him on the boat at the first lock

He was quite unperturbed about being on his own.  Here he is leaving the lock once it was open.

The original single lock at the second lock was still in good repair.   Stanking planks are in place near the bottom end so that the lock can be used as an overspill weir,

The recesses either side were where the bottom gates used to rest when they were opened

A bird nest can be seen where one of the bottom gates used to turn

The final two locks were a staircase and there were a couple of boats waiting to come down so we could just leave without having to bother closing the gates.

Lady getting ready to close the gates once the two waiting boats had got into the lock

The guy we locked up with spends a lot of his time delivering and moving boats around the system and was near the end of his current journey moving a boat from Droitwich to Buckby.  He was also a boat engineer so used the boat delivery function as a way of supplementing his income.

When we arrived at Bascote we topped up with water.

Buddy adopting his usual water point guard. Our friend, Ness, lives on one of the boats in the background which are on permanent moorings

We moored up next to Blair and Lizzie.  We have seen them around over the years around here but have never met.  They have converted their narrowboat by widening it so are limited to staying in the southern half of the country.  Only 7’ wide boats can get onto the northern part of the system.

Our new neighbours complete with chicken coop

They let their chickens roam the towpath when they are moored in country spots but fortunately Buddy was very good and left them alone.  I have trained him to leave wildfowl alone when they refuse to get off the towpath so that has paid dividends as far as the chickens were concerned.

Buddy seems quite happy with his new mooring

We had had some good news on Thursday – the shell of our new boat has finally been delivered to the boat fitters at Northwich so hopefully we only have three months to wait until we can move into our new home.  

This is part of our family at the wedding.

From left: Joanna, Karen, Steven, Catherine, Isaac (Polly's boyfriend), Sophie, Laure, Polly, me - I had changed into my dancing shoes