Monday 3rd October
We have had a slightly longer day today and have come 12 miles, 11 locks and 2 lift bridges from Wrenbury to Coole Pilate. It has been quite a nice day part from the fact that a strong wind got up this afternoon which made doing Hack Green Locks a tad more difficult than we would have liked. We did the journey in 6 hours including a diesel and water stop at Swanley Marina.
B and B didn’t sneak off before we got here and Barbara has made us a lovely blackberry and apple crumble too, yum! This afternoon we sat outside on the picnic tables but the wind was so strong my tea blew out of the cup and splashed all over my face! I tied George to one of the tables and he laid in the sun thinking he was at the pub! He likes to lay outside on the grass but usually we are on the towpath and have to keep a careful look out for other dogs. Here we don’t have to worry about it quite so much because not many people walk along here and the verge is really wide so people can give us a wide berth if they want to.
Talking of that I forgot to mention George’s traumatic experience of yesterday. We had just moored up and were on a slight bend so there was a gap between the bank and the boat. I had just got George off for a wee when 2 dogs appeared with no owners in evidence. One of the dogs, a spaniel, started hassling George rushing at him and barking. George backed away from it straight off the edge and slipped between the bank and the boat so he was hanging on the bank by his front legs and I had hold of his collar. Eventually Ken managed to shoo this dog away and I got George back on the boat. By this time the owners of the dogs had turned up saying, ‘Sorry about that’, but they hadn’t made any attempt to call their dogs or run up and put them on a lead. Poor old George was really stressed for ages afterwards, bless.
So today he had a nice stress free lay on the bank in the sun. We’re hoping the weather isn’t too bad tomorrow so we can do some essential cleaning, as Barry keeps pointing out, our roof is absolutely disgusting! At least there is room along here to get all the junk off and clean it properly. I think the last time I did that was at Rodley, on the Leeds and Liverpool, in April!
Tomorrow afternoon we are going to move on to Audlem so I can get my Shroppie Fly Burger tomorrow night!
