Monday 6th September
We have left the bright lights (and noise) of Chester behind and are now at Beeston, overlooking the remains of the castle again.
Sunday 5th September
Today we locked up to Christleton and for some reason it took rather longer than we anticipated. Firstly we went up the dreaded Northgate staircase locks. Mercifully we didn’t experience any problems like we had we had going down last week! We moored up soon after and went to Tesco’s for a last stock up as there aren’t many shops between here and Middlewich. With it being Sunday Tesco’s didn’t open until 11 am, but we were allowed in for ‘browsing’ at 10-30 am and were waiting at the checkout at five to 11!
With the shopping put away we left to tackle the 5 locks to Christleton. After the first of these we stopped for water as there had been a boat on the water point in the basin when we wanted to leave. As we were leaving the water point a boat was coming up the lock so when we got to the next lock we decided to wait for them to catch up as it was better for them to come with us rather than have to follow us and it was better for us to have another boat to lock with. So everyone was happy.
We arrived at Christleton well after our usual pub hour but managed to have one outside The Old Trooper. We were told by 2 people that it was a better pub than the Cheshire Cat (which we had previously been to) but a lack of real ales meant we didn’t really agree!
Monday 6th September
The weather forecast for this afternoon was appalling (wind and rain) so we decided to move up to Beeston this morning. It was fairly windy but still mild and dry. By the time we arrived at Beeston the wind was very strong and we were glad to moor up. We took George to The Shady Oak and although it wasn’t raining, we sat in their, rather dodgy, gazebo to try and keep out of the wind. This was ok but it wasn’t very well secured to the ground and every time there was a huge gust of wind we thought it was going to take off!
When we returned from the pub the dreadful weather was still not in evidence so I cleaned the side of the boat I hadn’t already done (and the front and the back again) so now the whole thing is clean, hurrah! That won’t last long though!
Suddenly in the late afternoon the weather took a dramatic turn for the worse with torrential driving rain to accompany the gale force winds! We lit the fire and felt sorry for the boaters who were still out in it. We were joined in the moorings by 9 other boats after the rain started!
