2026 and we’re off

     We are pretty excited about setting off & leaving the familiar Ainscough Mill behind for a while.

 

We are going to have to take a longer route out of west Lancashire, as the Bridgwater Canal breach of January 2025 is still not repaired. The Bridgewater Canal isn’t managed by Canal & River Trust (CRT), but a private company. They have said it should be repaired by the end of this year. Our alternate route takes in a lot of locks through the centre of Manchester. Whereas the Bridgewater skirts around the city & doesn’t have any locks along it at all.

We stocked up at Tesco and filled just about every receptacle we had with water ready for some journeying.

A friend, is tagging along for the first leg of our journey along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, around the bottom of Wigan to get to the Leigh Branch. It’s so much easier having two boats in the double locks, plus it saves water too. We have really missed the exertion of doing locks since last year.

After we moored up on our second day of travelling, John was putting the back cover up & noticed a tiny squirrel on the waterside gunwale. The little chap jumped into the canal when he spotted John. So, John got a stick & coax him onto to it. We spotted him later in the day, looking all fluffy again once he’d dried out.

Once indoors after the rescue we had an e-mail from CRT, saying there was a problem with a cill in one of the locks on the Ashton Canal, the other side of Manchester. Broken cills often take a good while to fix and they will let us have more information in about 10 days time.

We will stay on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal until we have more information on the Ashton stoppage. Once we pass though Leigh we’ll be on the Bridgewater Canal (the private one) and we are only allowed (with our CRT licence) 7 nights & no return within 28 days on there.

Time for a bit of spring cleaning, exploring the area around Crooke & knitting I guess.

Crooke was a mining village with a system of underground canals to access the coal seams. The basin is now a private marina.

It is so hard to imagine what a bustling place it would have been and how filthy with all the industries belching out smoke. We strolled up above the village, through what is now gorgeous woods. The carpet of bluebells looked & smelt amazing.

The area has lots of capped mines, but this one looks as if it’s really misbehaving, with it’s huge fence & pile of stones. We looked up which pit it was and it was John’s Pit Colliery.

Now a bit of recent catch up now.

We had crew for a weekend, so a stroll up to Fairy Glen, Appley Bridge was called for. It is always beautiful, especially in the spring. The bluebells were just starting to come into flower. A friend had said about pickling wild garlic buds, as they are like pickled onions. So as well as leaves, I picked a few buds too.

After our stroll up the glen we checked everything on the roof was secure and the 2 extra mooring lines we’d put on when we moored were OK & awaited storm Dave to arrive. 

We always try moor away from trees when strong winds are forecast. We were just able to squeeze past this fallen tree the following day.

February we had a 2 week holiday in Port Erin, Isle of Man. The cottage was gorgeous and in a super spot over looking the bay & harbour.

The locals did rather stare through the window at us though.

We had some very wild weather while we were there. The huge waves at Douglas were phenomenal. Consequently, no boats or ferries were able to dock, which meant the super market looked like ‘old mother Hubbard’s cupboard!!

Blogspot stopped!

To be honest I’ve no idea why I’ve not bothered to keep my blog up to date. I think I’ll blame my woolly obsession, spinning and knitting the stuff!! Plus, we weren’t able to travel very far in 2025 due to the drought and our main route south was blocked with a massive breach. I think the not travelling very far & my new crochet obsession probably added to my loss of bloginess.

It is very hard to believe we celebrated our 10^th anniversary of living aboard on 15^th December 2025!!!!

We were shocked to wake up New Year's Day 2025 to the news of the massive breach in the Bridgewater Canal at Little Bollington. We were moored at the very breach spot for two nights just a few weeks previously, it’s a regular stopping off spot for us as it’s so beautiful there, overlooking the Dunham Massey NT house.

Early in 2025, the Canal & River Trust announced Wigan flight of locks would be closed in May due to the reservoir levels being very low. So we spent the whole of last year in West Lancashire, just pootling along between Appley Bridge & Lydiat. As the year went on just about all the locks on the canal system were closed due to the drought. Lots of areas completely ran out of water, leaving boats on the bottom, often on a considerable tilt. The section of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal we were stuck on has two feeds from the River Douglas, which mean we stayed nicely afloat.

I’ve always wanted to crochet but have never got around to it. Attic 24, a blogger & crochet designer from Skipton started a crochet a-long (CAL) January last year, ‘Canalboat Blanket’. So, that was it, I followed her online tutorials, and I’m loving it. The Halsall Navvy was the perfect chap to model it.

 

At a rough count I’ve crocheted two more blankets, three or four cardigans, bags and several hats.

During last year we were able to attend three spinning/weaving groups each month, as well as a weekly craft & natter. My Jubilee Fibres business has kept us busy too.

We spent a week with my sister in Dundee & visited the Kelpies on the Forth & Clyde Canal.

There were two cruising highlights of our year being stuck.

October we had our 6^th trip into Salthouse Dock, Liverpool – we just love it there.

December we booked ‘the’ crew for a trip up & down (just before new year) the 21 locks of Wigan flight. It was great to spend Christmas in Chorley with our daughters. Our 3 big grandkids, oh, and their mum are super at lock keeping for us.

I have just found a blog I wrote way back, but didn’t pop it up. First though, I’m going to compose a current bog as we head off to do some travelling and try to catch up with all the things we’ve done over the silent blog months.

Thank you, Sheila, for giving me the prod I needed to get back to blogging after a ridiculous gap of 18 months!!

Our neighbour the M25!

The M25 wasn’t really our closest neighbour as there are other boats here and my sister Louise & family about ½ mile up the hill towards Abbots Langley.

We’ve had lots of visitors. Louise’s mother-in-law came for a day. She was born in Burnt Oak & her best friend was born in the same street in Burnt Oak as my dad!

Our niece did some posed falling in for her nan.

 

Louise & I went to visit our uncle in Market Deeping as he’s not been too well. We stay in Ely for a night & of course I just had to have a look at the boats on the River Great Ouse, somewhere where we’ll never be taking our boat.

Jack was house & doggie sitting for his aunt & uncle. He popped to visit with Ben & the dogs.

Heather & the kids came down from Chorley to spend a week with aunty Lou & uncle Paul. We all went to the ‘Paradox Museum’ in London (opposite Harrods). It’s a fascinating museum/illusions exhibition. We all had an absolutely fantastic time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had two pedaloes on the Serpentine.

 

The big & little kids had fun in the cooling off in the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.

As we headed away from Kings Langley we picked up Alice, Jack & Ben to help us up through Hemel Hempstead to Boxmoor.

We picked up the ‘super crew’ as their mum had to work the following week.

First stop, Aldi to stock up for the journey. I do so love a personal shopper.

We caught the train to visit the London Transport Museum.

John may well have driven this train in the 1970/80’s and possible ridden on the bus

 

It was another very hot day in London, and we really enjoyed our stroll along the Embankment in the pleasant rain. We didn’t spot any narrow boats on the River Thames.

All the sub-surface Underground trains are one huge carriage that fascinated us all as it bent & twisted through the tunnels.

I really wanted to visit the repurposed Battersea Power Station. It’s now an upmarket shopping centre & flats, that retains some of its huge engines & their workings. Magnus spotted someone with a Lego shopping bag, so he asked the security chap where the shop was, and off we went.

It was quite exciting as there was a filming going on with loads of crew and extras all hiding behind corners!!

 

Back to the real boating world and as usual the crew worked hard doing the locks & swing bridge.

 

Magnus picked us lots of blackberries and the boys found us a mooring pin while magnet fishing.

Both the lads were very keen to get down the weed hatch to clear the prop.