Thursday 16th September
5 miles and 2 locks worth of travel has brought us to Hurleston Junction. In spite of the changeable weather we have had a really good day. No, we didn’t clean the chimney yet as it was raining first thing, but hopefully we will be able to do that tomorrow morning. We stopped at Venetian Marine and got diesel, coal (the need for a fire is not going to lessen now!) and a new fire brick. One of ours fell over in the fire and broke into 3 pieces! You wouldn’t expect them to break like that but there you are. It is cobbled together like a mosaic at the moment but will need replacing at some point. Unfortunately the new one will not fit without some modification because of our back boiler. This would not be so much of a problem had Ken not accidentally thrown an important part of his angle grinder in the river some time ago!
When we left Venetian the wind had got up alarmingly (shades of the last couple of days) but it wasn’t raining yet. We made our way to Barbridge Junction where we stopped for water and rubbish disposal. Then we took George to the pub as he didn’t get to go yesterday. It started off sunny but while we were there the weather took yet another turn for the worse and we had to scuttle into the smoking area for shelter.
After the pub we came about another mile to Hurleston Junction. Here the Shroppie Shelf is really predominant and even the go kart tyres can’t keep us off it. We have had to attatch another fender to them and that seems to have done the trick. Good job we have the gang plank for George otherwise he’d never be able to get on and off the boat as we are a couple of feet from the bank!
So tomorrow – Chimney cleaning (weather permitting), walk up Hurleston Locks then go to Nantwich to the shops and the pub no doubt!
