Saturday 11th September
First thing this morning saw us mooring up a boat which had been let off it’s moorings over night. It appeared in the bridge hole behind us and at first we thought there was someone driving it. However, the lack of any engine noise meant we quickly realised it was drifting. The ropes were on the towpath having been slipped off the cleats on the boat. We always make sure ours are tight round the cleats so they can’t be slipped off. I always tie a really convoluted knot too so it isn’t easy to undo the rope. When we moor up in towns we also chain the boat to the mooring rings, so if our ropes are let off, or worse still, cut, the boat will not drift off. Most opportunist ‘boat liberators’ do not carry bolt croppers!
Later on we made our way down the Middlewich Locks. As we were coming down the first one a hire boat (bless them) decided to wait under Wardle Bridge for us to come out so they could go in. This bridge is quite low and Ken nearly had the chimney off manouvreing round them! I then had a good run at the next 3 locks, although they all needed setting, I could get the next one ready while Ken was in the preceding one. A man helped me with the gates on the third one and I subsequently found out, when he joined us at the water point, that he was the anal one from the day before, with the new paint job and the long suffering wife! I didn’t recognise him without his hat on.
At The Big Lock there were two boats waiting to come up so they did the lock for us and I got to stay on the boat. Then we were off out of Middlewich. A short distance later (we only came 2 miles in total) brought us to Bramble Cutting, a former clay pit made into lovely offside moorings with picnic tables and because it’s not on the towpath side, no ramblers or dog walkers! We let George out without his lead and he had a funny five minutes (well two minutes) going mad like he used to and wore himself out. I daren’t let him out in the dark by himself though because he is stupid enough to fall in the canal!
There were some serious showers in the afternoon and Ken was in and out like a fiddler’s elbow! So was my washing! I gave up with it in the end and hung it up in the shower (the one indoors).
We were joined by another boat in the late afternoon and Ken and the chap off this boat were doing a bit of fishing in the evening when two hire boats (bless them again) came past in opposite directions and had a bit of a crash. One (Black Prince) had two chaps on the back and presumably 2 ladies inside getting the dinner and the other (Middlewich Boats) had 10 young men dressed as pirates on it! The crash was not really anyone’s fault, they were both going a bit too fast and it just happened as the Middlewich came round the bend and the Black Prince couldn’t reverse quick enough to avoid them. The Middlewich ended up front on on the bank behind us and Ken had to push them off. We all had a good laugh.
Following all the commotion the fish had got the Hell out of Dodge so that was the end of the fishing session!
Off to Anderton tomorrow.
