Sunday 25th July
We have had a really good day today travelling the 8 or so miles and 12 locks to Congleton from Gurnett. It was fine and dry when we set off and remained so, apart from a brief shower while we were getting water at the top of the Bosley flight. We got down the flight in 1 hour and 45 minutes which is quite good. There were several boats coming up which helped. At the bottom we saw ‘Arlanza’ again and they asked if we were mooring up but we had already decided to get to Congleton. They have a notice in the front of their boat which says – ‘A nice young lady and a grumpy old git live here’ – hmmm, I’ll have to get one!
When we got to bridge 61 we spotted Penny moored there, she came out and we and pulled in for a chat. She and her friend Angela were having their lunch before moving on to Congleton. We said we would advise her of the mooring situation when we got there. As it happened we were one of only 2 boats on the aqueduct so there was no problem. George needed a walk and we needed a paper so we went off to the shop, or rather we went off to the Queen’s Head and Ken went off to the shop from there! Before we did this Ken put a pot roast in the oven (the significance of this will become clear) as it was about 3 pm by this time.
After a nice couple of pints of Abbott we returned to find Penny had arrived. We were invited for a drink which we said we would have between our dinner (6pm) and their dinner (8pm). However, we found our gas bottle had run out while we were at the pub so our dinner wasn’t cooked! After remedying that and having a shower we went to Penny’s for a drink about 6pm and several libations later we rolled out again about 8-30pm. The pot roast was certainly done by this time! That said we decided to have an all day breakfast instead which we eventually got about 9pm!
I told Penny she is a bad influence on us and throws our routine completely. It’s all good fun though!
