Saturday 29th May
Yesterday (Friday) as we had planned to stay here at Gurnett and the weather was lovely, following the arctic conditions of the few days before, we had a cleaning day. To break the monotony we had to go back to Sutton Hall for an hour at lunchtime. George was very keen to go, especially when he discovered we were going the more direct route!
On our return Ken went off in search of a shop for a paper and I did the windows and started the brass. This was interrupted, first by the tea and Eccles cakes and then by the woman from the boat behind who came over to chat. It turns out we both have the same idea about what to do with our unruly hair – put a bag on our heads!
I eventually finished the brass sometime later. We were just getting the preprandial drinks when Penny appeared at the hatch. Penny is the owner of the boat built before ours. Barbara had told us last week when she phoned that Penny was on the Macclesfield but we hadn’t seen her until now. She had a couple of drinks and a long chat, it was nice to see her as we had only met once or twice before.
Of course, as I had done the brass yesterday what happened? Yes, it absolutely hammered down with rain today! It was so bad and windy too, we didn’t even set off for the Bosley Locks. Ken went off to the paper shop again and I tackled the European ironing mountain. Ken returned from the shop with some Staffordshire oatcakes. These are a bit like pancakes and you toast them on one side, melt cheese over the other side and roll them up. Very nice they were too!
George, hearing the rain beating down on the cratch cover, was showing no sign of wanting to go out so we left him and went to the Old King’s Head, which you can trip up and fall into from here. Literally, if you stumble off the towpath and down the bank! The Old King’s Head is an old fashioned looking pub with really busy carpet and a landlord who is as mad as a box of frogs! We learned while we were in there that spunk is the Danish word for liquorice and he had a box of it behind the counter! He also had a Roller in the car park and a Sunbeam in the garage being MOT’d. He’s going to a society wedding next week and he’s taking his barmaid, who is lovely but as mad as what he is, to stir things up a bit! He does keep a good pint of Old Speckled Hen though.
So it has rained all day and as a consequence we are still here! The forecast is better for tomorrow so fingers crossed. I’ve got to work off the oat cakes and the Eccles cakes too!
