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| Fearn's swing bridge |
Over
this winter we’ve continuously cruised a very short stretch, along
a 4 mile section of the Rufford Branch of the Leeds & Liverpool
Canal, it adds up to 44 miles and the same three swing bridges 33
times. During a shorter period last year, from when we moved aboard
until mid March we had travelled 151 miles and through 62 locks and
26 swing bridges.
The
winter stoppages were lifted 2 days ago, but the wind obviously wants
us to stay in Tarleton. The wind has been incredible, huge 30-48 mile/hour gusts, it seems worse then a few weeks ago when storm Doris hit.
On a fairly still day the breeze over the moss really catches the
boat as we stop to open Fearn’s Swing Bridge, so we’d be pinned
to either bank in these winds. Fingers crossed we can make a dash
for it this week as I REALLY WANT to be moored outside The Farmers
Arms for knitting on Thursday.
We
spent a few days visiting my sister in Dundee and the weather was
fairly kind to us. It was a much shorter train journey from Preston
than we’ve been used to from Luton. I’ve always wanted to walk
over the Tay Bridge, which we did and I got a sun burnt face!!! The
foreshore of the River Tay is rocky and craggy on the Fife side
compared to the embankment of Dundee.
She works at an agricultural university trust and invited us to attend some presentations by the
post grad students. They were doing a ‘Dragon’s Den’ type
event where they were putting forward their research proposal bids.
We heard six of them speak and only two were about potato roots and
aphids. The others were very interesting:- a tool for detecting
clostridum strains in soil, making paper from fungus, a Scottish
rural study and increasing barley crop yealds. The farm manager from
the trust has recently retired and we visited him at his own small
holding. It was like being in heaven as the rams are very friendly
and wanted to be cuddled. They have 3 pregnant mares, one was 3
weeks over due and delivered a couple of days after we were there. I
came away with a carrier bag full of black fleece from their Zwarbles ram and white from the cross bred white ewes. Our last day we
spent strolling in the mist and then warm sunshine at Lunan Bay, one
of my favourite beaches ever.
I’ve
done a fair bit of knitting over the last few weeks, spun up some of
the fleece I got in Scotland and had a ball winding frenzy, winding
24 balls!!!!
John’s
second batch of mead was lovely and we actually still have a bottle.
We have a kit of elderflower wine fermenting on the side now. I
can’t wait to start gathering things for wine making and plan to
pick dandelions and nettles as soon as I see some shooting.
The
kids got us both Ancestry DNA testing kits for Christmas and after
weeks of waiting our results are back, it looks a your ethnic make
up. John was
contacted by one of his 4th cousins in California and it
turns out her great grand father Clide and John were brought up in the same
house in Archway, with a good few years in between them.
Lance
had what Heather & I thought at first glance was chicken pox, so
we looked after him while she was at work. However, it turns out the
strange chicken pox spots were actually the hand, foot and mouth
virus. Luckily it didn’t make him unwell like chicken pox does.
Heather
and I went to a gin tasting evening at a new bar at Burscough Wharf,
‘Jack & Gin’. It was an outside event in the court yard
under gazebos, luckily the earlier rain had stopped. We got to taste
gins from 10 different distilleries. We moored at Rufford so we were
able to get the train and Heather had her first sleep over without
the rest of the family. She is now getting the bar to save her their
empty gin bottles to put her origami flowers in.
We’ve
made the most of the 2-3 nice spring days we’ve had. John swept
the chimney and touched up the black paint work and I had to put
a good bit of elbow grease into polishing the roof vents as they were
very tarnished.
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| Welcoming committee on our return from Scotland |
