Thursday 15th July
It’s still blowing a gale here at Higher Poynton, there have been some pretty nasty squalls but also some nice dry spells and at least it isn’t cold. This morning Ken got his crayfish traps up and in total had 50 crayfish! That’s enough for dinner we thought. As I am a bit squeamish I decided to go off to the shop for some accompanying salad while Ken murdered, sorry I mean cooked them in boiling water! The shop in Poynton is about 2 miles away but on the way there I discovered a Coop a bit closer and a newsagents even closer than that. I was only gone about an hour and a quarter but fortunately by the time I got back the crayfish were residing, cooked and shelled, in the fridge! 50 crayfish do not amount to much after cooking and shelling so we are supplementing dinner with a couple of tins of sardines, yum!
There was a strange man moored further up the towpath at lunchtime who, on his way to the pub for lunch, saw fit to have a heated discussion with a woman moored there, leaning out of her hatch, minding her own business, about the fact that he thought dogs shouldn’t be allowed on the towpath! We witnessed this altercation from a distance and the woman, who has two dogs herself, told us about it when we passed. As her dogs were nowhere in evidence at the time we came to the conclusion that this chap had taken exception to George being on the towpath! Indeed, the woman who had been ‘got at’ did say she thought this mad man was going to have a word with us too. That may have been a bad move!
Fortunately, when we got to the pub this man and his wife were in the other bar (the one dogs aren’t allowed in!) so our paths didn’t cross. When we returned to the boat we were standing chatting to Penny and her friend Chris when this ‘dog hater’ chap cast off. He must have had another ‘conversation’ with the woman with the two dogs because as he pulled away he was looking back at her boat and he was sticking his fingers up at her standing there! How rude! His poor wife must have been really embarrassed. I noticed she wasn’t standing on the back of the boat with him! As he came past us he eyed George with disdain but never made a comment. He’s not going to get on very well as a boater if he thinks dogs shouldn’t be on the towpath, there always are dogs on the towpath! We all get fed up with irresponsible dog owners lettting their dogs run riot, not picking up poo (one of my soap box subjects as you know!) , etc but it’s just something you have to put up with being on a boat. I hope we don’t meet up with him ourselves, could be disastrous!
Tomorrow we are heading up to Bugsworth Basin again. We have decided to give Marple a miss on the way up but may stop on the way back if there’s room. Hopefully there will be an improvement in the weather while we are at Bugsworth so, apart from utilising Tescos at Whaley Bridge and frequenting The Navigation obviously, we can do a bit of work on the outside of the boat. Penny has given us some stuff to lacquer the brass with, so if I clean it and lacquer it I won’t have to clean it again. hurrah! She has also given us some stuff to get the lacquer off the mushrooms with. Now you may be wondering why I want to get the lacquer off the mushrooms. Well, it wasn’t put on very well in the first place and is coming off by itself leaving some bits shiny and some bits not. If I get the remaining lacquer off I can polish them and re-lacquer (is that a word?) them properly, then I won’t have to polish them again either. We also have varnishing to do, cleaning and touch up painting. We probably won’t get round to half of it but the thought is there!
