Monday 16th May.
Unfortunately West Ham managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again and consequently have been relegated from the Premiership. Enough said!
Today the weather has been truly awful and had it not been for the fact that we were moored near the rubbish tip, where incidentally, they started work very noisily at 6am this morning and stirred up a nasty niff, we would have stayed put. But we donned the old waterproofs and set off to travel 5.5 miles, 2 locks and a BW manned lift bridge here at Plank Lane and are moored near Pennington Country Park which would be lovely were we able to see any of it through the gusty winds and driving rain! We may also have been able to get our dog to go for a walk here if he were not so averse to bad weather, sensible pooch.
Maybe it will get out a bit later or tomorrow even, mind you, the forecast is bad until Thursday. We are really paying for the nice weather we had earlier, that was obviously Summer! Ken and I took advantage of a lightening of the rain to go to the pub. Easier said than done as the nearest one, The Nevison, is closed for refurbishment – ‘Opening March 2011’ it says on a notice outside. Maybe they haven’t noticed that it is now May! The next one we encountered, The Fir Tree (home of the Leigh Angling Association), was not open today. Finally we happened upon The Spinners Arms, not a bad pub although they didn’t serve any real ales.
On the way back we popped into the local shop to top up our cake supplies. We keep eating B and B’s cakes when they make a cup of tea so we have to return the compliment with a selection of Mr Kipling’s finest when we make the tea, it’s only fair. We’ll have to give that up when we return to the marina though!
When we leave here and go through Leigh the L and L will become the Bridgewater Canal which is run under the auspices of the Manchester Ship Canal. Then as it has been raining most of the time for the last week, replenishing dwindling water supplies, we will be able to venture forth on to the Rochdale Canal.
