Salthouse Dock tomorrow

 

We moored near Melling on the outskirts of Liverpool yesterday just as the wind REALLY picked up. It’s the wind from the north, that delivered lots of hail stones in the night and a good coating of snow to my little sister in Dundee. We’ve done all our chores today:- changed the bed, emptied the loo, cleaned the windows, John made rolls & I've made ginger biscuits, for us and our CRT lock & bridge keepers and boiled up our next batch of wine, so once we moor in Liverpool we can start to explore. We have a list of places people have recommended to visit and the tourist information is just on Salthouse Dock.

We had a lazy St. George’s Day with our boat decorated with it’s newest bunting. The little flags were sold as wing mirror covers in a set of two/pack from ‘The Works’. I took out their elastic and sewed them onto ribbon = perfect, 40 bunting for £2. We’d read the best time to pick dandelions for wine making is on a sunny St. George’s Day. So off we set to pick 1lb of dandelion heads. These have steeped for two days and are now snuggled up in the saloon & just starting to ferment.

Easter Monday Colin and Carole from ‘The Wool Boat’ took us in their van to the Historic Boat Gathering at Ellesmere Port Boat Museum. We were expecting a larger event than last year when we moored there, as it was the gathering’s 40^th anniversary this year. Sadly it didn’t even slightly live up to our expectations. All but a couple of working boats had left during Sunday and there were just two people demonstrating crafts, unlike last year, where we learnt to splice a rope. Colin had a chat with the crew of ‘Kennet’ the restored, historic Liverpool short boat, as they were bringing the boat back across the River Mersey the next day. As part of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal bicentenary celebrations Kennet crossed to the other side and spent winter at the museum. Colin takes photographs for the boating press and ascertained what time they were departing Ellesmere Port so he could go back to snap them. We had lunch and then headed to look at the end of the Manchester Ship Canal at Eastham, as neither Carole or Colin had been there before. Kennet moored beside us at the Farmers Arms on Wednesday before it’s mammoth trek up the Wigan flight of locks and over the Pennines to be in Skipton for May Day bank holiday weekend.

Heather was working last Tuesday, so Nikita and Magnus came to stay for a couple of nights and Lance popped in just for the day. Wednesday we headed off with the two big kids to get water and an ice cream from Burscough Wharf before returning to opposite the Farmers Arms.  It is so nice to have a crew to get to do the really rotten chores like scrubbing & mopping the decks!!!

SO, this time tomorrow we’ll be moored in Salthouse Dock. To say I’m excited would be an understatement. We thought we’d be the only boat making the journey tomorrow but just as I’m typing another boat has moored near us to head down in the morning.

Anyone remember these?

Leaves opening on our baby oak