Friday 10th June
We stayed at Slattocks today and went in to Rochdale on the bus (£4-20 for me) and I did indeed spend an inordinate amount of time in M&S lingerie department and various other places. Luckily Ken decided to go to the fishing tackle shop with Barry before he went to the Wetherspoon’s, which took some time as they got lost, otherwise he would have been bladdered by the time I got back! Anyway, suffice to say I got what I went for, eventually!
Nothing else very exciting happened. We were moored on the route between 2 pubs but even though it was a Friday night we weren’t disturbed at all.
Saturday 11th June
Today we have travelled 1.5 miles and 10 locks from Slattocks to Chadderton and are moored on the Irk Aqueduct near The Rose of Lancaster. The weather was kind to us, even being hot at times. Then straight after we had moored up it rained and hailed, so how lucky was that?
This is the recommended safe mooring place for boats travelling down the Manchester 19 locks the next day. It is about 3 miles, over an hour’s cruising, from here to the first lock of the 19 at Failsworth so to get there by 8-30am we would have to leave about 7am in case there were any problems with prop fouling or the vertical lift bridge. However, at Slattocks top lock, we were talking to the chap who lives in the lock cottage and he said when he goes in to Manchester he always moors at The Boat and Horses at Broadway which is past the vertical lift bridge and 2 miles closer to Failsworth. He said it is just as safe as the Rose of Lancaster and it only takes about 20 minutes to get to Failsworth from there. So tomorrow we are going to move to Broadway to cut down the travelling time for Monday.
After we moored up here and had a cup of tea we went to the Coop for a mini stock up (15 chocolate mini rolls for the price of 10 again!) Then we took himself to the Rose of Lancaster and sat outside on the decking. It was quite pleasant although not very sunny. The Rose of Lancaster is on the main road between Rochdale and Manchester which is quite a busy road. A car came past going towards Manchester with a couple of lads in and the passenger was shouting something out of the window. We didn’t think much of it until a little while later, the same car came past in the opposite direction and the passenger was now dangling his willy out of the window shouting ‘Look at me cock!’ There was an elderly couple walking along the pavement and I think this getsture was aimed at them but I got an eyeful as well!
I have to say they have got a lot of class around here – All of it 3rd!
