Friday 14th May
We have come such a long way from Kidsgrove – all of 1-5 miles and one 1ft lock! It has been a rather miserable day weather wise, not very warm and quite showery. We set off this morning with the intention of going to Congleton but as it kept raining we stopped at Kent Green, to wait for a break between the showers and never moved again!
To the East of here is a hill called Mow Cop which is 1100ft above sea level. If you want to you can climb up and see over the Cheshire Plain to Wales. On the top of Mow Cop is a imitation ruined castle. Yes, I did say imitation ruin, built in 1754 by Randle Wilbraham, a local squire. Why? Why not? In 1807 the Primitive Methodists were created up on the summit too, by Hugh Bourne, a wheelwright. Their first meeting lasted 14 hours! And I thought the R Cs were bad! There is a memorial church on the site of this meeting. So, lots of interest up there on Mow Cop ……………………………and of course we would have been up there like a shot (maybe) but Ken has succumbed to a bout of hay fever and finally, after several days coughing and sneezing, today took some piritons, which made him tired. Yesterday I fell down the front steps into the boat and am aching and bruised all down one side, so neither of us was really feeling the best!
We took George for a bit of a toddle down the towpath. He started off quite well but did his usual refusal after a while. I spent some time trying to persuade him to go a bit further while Ken went on ahead. As I was doing all this tugging, pushing and pulling and cajoling, I looked up and saw I was being watched by a lady on a moored boat opposite and she seemed quite amused by my antics! I gave up and returned George to the boat. Then Ken reappeared, armed with some bits of wood to make kindling with. If it ever gets warm enough to let the fire go out during the day I’ll need kindling to relight it in the evenings!
The next job of work, having looked over the hedge and discovered ‘The Rising Sun’ (we didn’t know it was there when we moored up – honest!) was to go in search of a paper shop. We were sent on a very convoluted route to the co-op, by a young woman having a smoke outside her house (don’t a lot of people do that nowadays, go outside for a smoke?) and got back a lot quicker than we went. At least we would have done if we hadn’t have tripped up and fallen into the pub!
We did have a bit of trouble getting in to the pub actually as they had recently had a new carpet and we could hardly push the door open! It is a nice old fashioned sort of pub, with a bar and a lounge. It was really warm too, the radiator was red hot! It was pensioner’s lunch day so there was a group of OAPs in there, I suppose you have to keep the old dears warm! We pair of old crocks fitted right in!
This afternoon we had to retire hurt to a darkened room. Both of us were so tired. I know what you’re thinking and no we hadn’t exceeded the stated dose in the pub! I don’t know what it was. We did do a few things yesterday, Ken did an oil change and reassembled the top box and I did cleaning etc but anyway we had to go for a little kip.
Tomorrow we will see if we can make it a bit further. Congleton for lunch and Bosley locks tomorrow night. We’ll see.
