The Crew

  

Our daughters & the 4 grandchildren came on the train to visited for my birthday in 2024.

It was the youngest’s first trip through a lock. It’s amazing how they’ve all grown during the missing blog months. When we met them I told them the canal looked like tomato soup!

 

 

 

We do like to get the kids to help moor the boat.

Ed was our bridge man.

Crafting

  

I learnt to crochet in January last year – I just had to take part in a crochet along organised by the designer Attic 24 – it was the Canalboat Blanket.

Then I went on to make another snazzy hexigan blanket.

My favourite natural dyeing is with onion skins. Most other natural dye stuffs require the wool to be mordanted, but you get a nice orange colour with no mordant and a bright yellow with an alum mordant. I pop the jars on the roof on hot sunny days & a few days later the wool is dyed.

John’s the weaver – I honestly wouldn’t have the patience to warp a loom.

The locker hooking technique is more for me. I’ve sold lots of doormats.

We had a BBQ and sat out until late & I spun until it was too dark.

 I’d quite like to live in this street in Congleton.

Wildlife and Weather

We’ve taken lots of photos over the missing blog months. The next few blogs will be themed and in no particular order. Today, there is a spotlight on wildlife and weather.

Fallen trees are a regular occurrence on our travels. So if we’re going to have a few days wait for the chaps to clear it, we just get on with crafting. I always have cake made to offer the lads with a brew when they do arrive to sort the stoppage.

This last winter (2025/26) was quite mild, with no significant ice. The previous winter however, saw us frozen in.

 The autumn & spring sunrises & sunsets are stunning with the colours they cast.

We are surrounded by birds every day, but some sightings are tremendous. While moored in spring at Halsall on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal we were visited each morning by a barn owl, no doubt looking to feed a hungry family.

A little dove hitched a lift.

Apart from the water birds pecking the algae off the bottom of the boat at any time of the day & night, which sounds like a hammer!! We just love them all.

And no, I didn’t have my scissors handy to snip the alpacas fleece.

Late one evening we heard a lot of splashing & scratching on the bank side of the boat. It was a hedgehog that had fallen in. Once we’d got him out & he’d caught his breath, he scooted off into the hedge.

The moon also fascinates us.

Finally, we’ve never managed to get to that pot of gold.

Old news - a 2024 missed out blog

    

 Christmas 2023 the kids brought us a Manchester Ship Canal (MSC) cruise, which we booked for September 2024. We left the boat near Foxton, in the midlands to have the blacking on it’s bottom checked and headed to Liverpool on the train.

It was a fine but breezy day for our trip. We picked up Mersey Ferry ‘Snowdrop’ at Pier head, Liverpool. The River Mersey was a bit choppy.

The sea lock at Eastham on the Wirral was huge. The MSC is still used for some freight & we saw some ships docked and passed one.

There is just a small wall that separates the MSC.

It looked like the ferry wouldn’t actually get under some of the bridges, but it did.

We have been over the Barton swinging aqueduct and walked over some of the swing bridges too. It was quite something to see the swing bridges opening for us.

 

 

We treated ourselves to a ship’s dinner of scouse.

Foxton has a heritage community orchard, so we took the opportunity to pick some rare apple varieties.

On our travels along the North Oxford Canal we passed the repairs of a massive land slip that closed the canal the winter of 2023. The sign asks boats go past the repairs at tick-over, which we did, and another narrow boat promptly overtook us!

Some community wall art through Stoke-on-Trent

And, we knew autumn had arrived.

Couldn't imagine doing this job – the chaps were re-puddling a lock overflow.