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| What a difference a night makes - Friday morning on the cut after a day of wind and rain |
The plan on Thursday had
been to go down Calcutt top lock to have a pump out, getting water on the way,
and then carrying on through the other two locks to moor around Nelson’s Wharf
(aka ‘Shotgun Alley’). We wanted to be around there for Friday as Ann, Karen's mum, is coming
for a sleepover – her first visit to the new boat – and she can park right next
to the canal. It also means we can get
the old batteries in the car without having to carry them too far.
As it was, it was really
windy when I got up; for some reason, I had missed that part of the
forecast. On checking, the wind would
ease by lunchtime but then the rain would come.
I decided to stay put one more day as I can move on Friday morning
before Ann arrives after lunch. Also,
the forecast looked pretty good for Friday too.
Buddy and I had a dry but
windy walk in the morning but got soaked during the afternoon walk. As we were coming back along the towpath I could
see Mark was filling us up with diesel and putting some bags of coal on the
boat for us.
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Mark’s boat is very low in
the water as he has only just set out on his round and is therefore almost fully laden
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As you can see from the
picture I seemed to have misted up the lens on the camera phone so that’s the
last of the pictures for today.
Later on, I set about my
job list – one of the things that has been there a while has been to book into
Liverpool docks next year when we go on our northern travels. When Karen finishes work in the middle of
March we want to head for Chester first.
We have never made it into the city on the boat and Karen also has an aunt who lives
there so we will kill two birds with one stone so to speak. I only know Chester as a pedestrian so it
will be interesting to see it from the canal as it runs right through the
middle of town. It will also be the
first new bit of canal for some time for us.
After Chester, we want to
moor in Liverpool docks for a week and then set off on the Leeds &
Liverpool canal and spend a couple of months near my parents who live at
Gargrave, the northernmost point of the waterway. I have
allowed two months to get up to Liverpool so have booked us into the dock
moorings for the middle of May. It
should also give us time to hang around the Middlewich/Nantwich area as well and
meet up with Karen’s cousin, Dave, and his wife Barbara. Mind you, that’s assuming they are in the
area; their daughter gave them a grandchild last year so they tend to cruise
the Middlewich area so they are not far away 😉
I attempted the booking
online but it was rejected because the boat was too tall. I checked the details the licence authority
had on the boat and found the air draft (the height from the waterline to the
highest point of the boat) was 182 metres!
It seemed a decimal point had been missed, so I had to ring them up to
finish the booking and get the records changed.
The Leeds & Liverpool
canal will be new to us too as our previous boat was too long for the locks there. After that canal, we fancy places like Ripon,
York and Sheffield but those plans haven’t been firmed up yet.
Anyway, I must get on as I
have to cruise on to pastures new (well, revisited) today.
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| Looking towards the water point and Calcutt top lock on Friday morning before setting off |
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