Friday - part 2 - in the rain!

Leaving the Aqueduct Marina we travelled along the Middlewich Branch over the aqueduct over the River Weaver along a stretch of canal which is beautiful in its colours and diversity of lifestock - cattle, horses and sheep. There were few villages that we saw, though one - Clive Green - stands out, nestled away in a little hollow with the cottages gathered round the huge church like a bunch of chicks around a mother hen.

If you think I am waxing lyrical at this point - you should hear what Pearson writes in his Canal Companion to find something to say about this stretch of water.

"The cattle appear not averse to drinking canal water. In a belated attempt to derive much needed extra income, British Waterways recently experimented with fitting individual monitoring devices to cows known by the acronym BUMS, short for Bovine Utilisation Monitoring Systems"

Poor fellow must have bored out of his skull! It's not that bad!

Shortly after Clive Green we arried at the Stanthorne Lock which stands sentinal to the outskirts of Middlewich. By now we were meeting up with more and more boats - travelling both up and down the Branch, so had delays at the locks as we helped others lock up and then ourselves locked down.

We met some lovely people and had great chats with them.

One crew we felt very sad for had come on a week's holiday from Aberdeen. Dad, Mum, 20-something daughter and daughter's boyfriend. I was chatting to Dad and asked if he was enjoying the holiday - "hating it," he said, "all these bl**dy locks"! Looking around, his wife and daughter were, so to speak, in the same boat as Dad, but the young boyfriend was having a ball, jumping in and out the boat, tying up, steering, and everything else designed to make a good impression. Frankly, if you will forgive another pun, he was a bit overboard!

The final lock on the Middlewich Branch is the Wardle Lock and once through it one has to make a tight left turn onto the Trent amd Mersey to head north. By hanging onto the bow and middle ropes, John and I held the boat and Stan brought her round the corner - a really good, professional bit of navigation.

And then into the Middlewich flight of three locks, all close together. 

There was a lot of activity around Lock 3 as the bottom gates were leaking very badly and as a result the pound (the space between locks where boats can pass) between Lock 2 and Lock 3 was so shallow it could not take two boats. This was a problem as there were hire boats coming up from a Marina below the Lock 3 and a number of us coming down. So we were part of a process called filling a pound, where gates are opened to allow the canal to flow freely through the locks. Water came through Lock 1, through Lock 2 and into the pound, filling it and allowing boats to start moving again. John and Stan were up in Lock 1. When they started moving they had to manoevre out of the lock, into a 90 degree left hand turn and stop, wait for the boat coming out of Lock 2, then move into the set lock, wait for Lock 2 to empty into the now filled pound, pass the boat coming out of Lock 3, and enter Lock 3, to be locked down. They did very well. I meantime was helping open and shut gates, gathering information, and learning as much as I could from the professionals on duty at the locks; knowledge which I later imparted to the other members of the crew.

John and I had a moment of 'deja vew' (sorrry about spelling) as we passed the little marina where we had joined the n/b "Ash" for our trip five years ago. After the very professional Andersen Boats Marina at the bottom of Lock 3, our Middlewich Narrowboats looked rather tired and ready to join the other smaller companies in selling out to the 'big boys'. Pearson laments the passing of the smaller family businesses, but that is the way of the corporate world.

We left Middlewich through the aptly named Big Lock - a double sized lock with double gates top and bottom - and headed, once again for the countryside. Evening was drawing in so we moored in a wood called "Bramble Cutting" for the night. We hoped to hear the "hooting of a hunting owl" (as described by Pearson), but didn't. I looked out of the window during the night and immediately thought of Mole on his journey through the Wild Wood to find Badger ('Wind in the Willows').

John cooked us another amazing soup, this time a two bean (canneloni and black-eyed) and ground beef soup. (For South African readers ground beef = mince). We finished supper with toasted crumpets and honey and coffee.

We are well, still talking to each other, and really enjoying the holiday.

Note to Elly - Stan is still dry!

Sorry, I was pretty busy in Middlewich and never got the pix I would have liked to share with you, so no pix for this post.