From Cow Lane Bridge No 123E to Nantwich Aqueduct, a distance of 18 miles, 5¼ flg and 11 locks

None of us were feeling particularly rested when we got up on Sunday morning. The highlight of the rather disturbed night had been a woman saying, rather loudly, “Where do they Pee, Ooh, Ohh, on a canalboat”. Seemed rather odd that someone who had no problem of getting rather drunk finds it necessary to spell out the word poo.. but then again it takes all sorts I guess.

We started the long slow crawl up the locks away from Chester. The locks might have been good for barges and paired up narrow boats but with no gate paddles and really badly positioned ground paddle outlets they aren’t fun at all.

As we worked through Tarvin Lock No 38 a boat moored above the lock cast off in front of us (how original!). As the locks are broad Neil headed off up the canal to make sure the people knew we were behind them.

They were waiting for us at Greenfield Lock No 37. One of the gates doesn’t open all the way and of course they weren’t pulled in behind that one so Nick had to try to get a narrowboat through a gap that wasn’t really wide enough.

So we got the gates closed and Neil was standing by the ground paddle. The woman off the other boat turned to me “Do you think one paddle 1/3 of the way?” I said that with 2 boats I’d suggest both paddles 1/3 to 1/2 way, and that I was going on to the next lock to get it ready.

Neil wound his paddle up half way and the woman looked at him and said something about how opening his paddle only was only “helping” our boat.

They didn’t come through the next lock with us – odd people. I guess its something to do with people with boats from Longport (see the Tyrley Locks Post for more details).

We worked the next lock alone but then another boat (single handed) asked us how far we were going and could he share locks with us – which is fine by us as it makes things so much easier on the locks.

Being Sunday there were lots of fishermen out – trying to outwit the fish, so we had to crawl past them, and then past all those damned linear moorings… still at least the weather was OK and we could stand there and watch the world go by.

Working through Beeston Iron lock was fun as we went through together (naughty, naughty Mintball!) and sharing locks was so much easier. However as Anglo-Welsh was still open we pulled in for a pump-out and a new bottle of gas, but luckily a boat there wanted to go up the locks so the single handed boat was happy. As the locks are a staircase it takes a while to prepare and work through and we had just got the lock ready for us to go through by the time the pump-out was done, so we didn’t lose too much time.

The traffic on the A51 was still as slow as it had been on Friday.. don’t you just love road works! At Barbridge Junction  a Challenger Boat came out of the Middlewich Branch with no sounding of their horn, no person on the front deck keeping lookout, no they just steamed of the junction and then proceeded to move at a snails pace past all the boats. They would speed up slightly in open water but at the first sign of a bridge it was power down to tickover, wobble the tiller back and forth and just about make it through the bridge hole.

We were hoping they would turn up the Llangollen but no such luck and we were stuck behind them until they turned off into Nantwich Basin .

We stopped for the night on the Visitor moorings just before the aqueduct and headed into town for a couple of beers and a curry

Well yesterday was a most excellent and enjoyable day. Met Nick at the bottom of the road and we headed off to the Cheltenham Friends of the Samaritans beer festival at the Old Patesians Rugby Club. They had about 26 beers, mainly from local breweries, and a pig roast for when you got hungry. We got there at about 12:15 and left at about 9:30pm and had worked our way through a significant majority of the beers (half pints only of course).

We stopped for a curry on the way home at the Indus (where NONE of us had the Prawn on Puri¹  ) and it was just after midnight when I got home.

This morning I left the house just after 8:30am and picked up Nick and we headed off to the boat to fix the gas pipe and a couple of other things for the BSS.

Getting to Norbury wharf is quite easy but the last mile or so is down a single track road with only a few passing places. When we got there the car park was full so we ended up parking in the rather large, pub car park.

Mintball was moored right up by Norbury Wharf’s dry dock, which is actually the first lock on the Newport branch of the Shropshire Union which meant it was a bit of a walk with power tools and other bits and bobs.

The original idea we had for fixing down the gas pipe was to slip clips over it and then bolt them down through the wooden trunking that the gas pipe lies in. This turned out to be totally impossible to do for various reasons – so we ended up lifting the pipe out of the tray and fixing it using some 3/8 inch saddle clips (which we found in the Norbury Wharf Chandelery) on the wall right under the tray/lining overhang. So you can’t actually see the pipe unless you are lying in the bunks but at the same time it is not “hidden” and its properly supported. It also allowed us to tidy up the feed line to the fridge so its now neater than its ever been.

We also cleaned the burner in the oven – after 21 years its getting a bit ropey but hopefully it will get us through this BSS and we can then plan replacing it, and the rest of the kitchen, in the next couple of years.

1. Many, Many moons ago a group of us went to the Indus for a meal and when we were placing the order for our starters the waiter kept trying to persuade each of us to change our decision and order the Prawn on Puri.. “The Prawn on Puri is very good”, “May I recommend the Prawn on Puri, Sir” and so on. None of us took his suggestion up and its now become a matter of rote that someone has to suggest ordering the Prawn on Puri, knowing that no-one actually will  ↩

Well after the trip on the boat last weekend I went down will the mother of all colds. I was OK on Tuesday but by the time Wednesday rolled out I was feeing stuffed up and my throat was hurting.

Woke up on Thursday morning feeling like a train wreck : tonsils all inflamed, no voice, stinking headache, hot and cold sweats – the works. Spent half of the day asleep. Went to bed early and got up on Friday still feeling pretty ropey and all sweaty and clammy.

It seemed a shame to waste the weekend – its the first good one we’ve had for a bit and so many things needed doing: the front lawn needed mowing and there was stuff to do round the house but frankly I just didn’t have any enthusiasm.

Last night we went out to celebrate Richard’s Birthday – started with drinks at Laze Daze and ended up with a curry at Mahek’s which has become, amongst our friends, the favourite place to go for a curry.