It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

The deccies are up inside & turkey is ordered. It’s been far too windy to put the lights, bunting & pompoms outside. 

 

We had a couple of icy mornings at the beginning of the month and since then gallons of rain!!! The boys and I enjoyed jumping in the frozen puddles on our way to Mere Sands Woods.

Above Rufford lock

Yesterday we were at the panto in Southport. It was Jack & the Beanstalk. Last year we had a record turn out, but we were a select 9 this year. As usual we all joined in with the usual panto banter, however, the rest of the audience were very subdued!!!! Afterwards we had dinner at the Guelder Rose on Southport sea front. It was amazing to see such big waves on the sea, usually the tide slides in and out without you noticing.

My girls and me

The three grand kids came to stay last weekend. We had planned to take the boat to Tarleton to pick them up from school, but we decided to take the bus instead due to the wind. It’s pretty tricky navigating from Rufford to Sollom through the West Lancashire moss when there is a slight breeze, but with the gale force winds we’d have been stuck on the bank at the swing bridges.

Magnus created a super chocolate, banana & peanut butter pizza.

Nikita peeled potatoes for us all.

Magnus grated lots of cheese for the fish pie.

The ducks were well fed.

 

All the mole hills on the tow path were flattened and we collected a bag of sticks for kindling.

Magnus wanted to learn to knit, so he chose some yarn & wound it into a ball. He did really well and managed a few rows with minimal help.

We love looking at the alpacas on Carr Lane, Tarleton (on the way to school). We were greeted by the 4 week old youngster. Their owner explained the male had got out of his paddock 9 months ago, they wouldn’t usually plan having young in the winter!!!

We attended Magnus’ nativity at school last week.

We weren’t able to go to the other two grand children’s shows as we spent a couple of days in Kings Lynn. We hired a car to attend the funeral of one of our best friends, Steve, and he had a good send off. To chill out after the funeral we strolled into Kings Lynn along the River Great Ouse. The old dock buildings were lovely. We took the little ferry back over to West Lynn in the evening.

 

Steve in the early 1980's

We’re famous

We have two photographs of our boat in the December Towpath Talk. Page 2 shows me taking the boat out of the recently repaired lock 2 and page 49 shows us passing Wigan Pier. We’d travelled a good bit with Colin & Carole on nb Emma Maye and they were waiting for us at the junction of the Rufford Branch the day it opened after lock 2 was repaired. 

Thanks to Colin who’s a reporter for the publication for letting us use the photos.

We enjoyed watching the workforce repairing the gate post of lock 2 during the proceeding days to our journey.

I don’t think I’d like to be in the water at this time of the year.

 

It was a gorgeous day for our trip down the Rufford Branch, not only did we have help from Colin & Carole at the top locks, we paired up with another boat, which halved the lock work.

 

The work had already started to prepare bridge 2A (railway bridge), for it’s new top. There were several cranes & diggers in the field along with the new bridge. A pontoon was half way across the canal ready for the planned complete closure of the canal the next week.

 

This week we had a good day in Southport and we brought our panto tickets (OH, yes we did!!). We’re not going to be quite the massive mob of 20 that we had at last year’s panto, but a select 9 of us this time round.

I was excited about going to the Slipway knit & natter, Burscough, as I had taken part in a fibre swap for BritSpin last month. As we were travelling Ali, who was my swap partner wasn’t able to post it to me. I was thrilled when she gave it to me at the group. She’d carded some mini rolags in blue & made a project bag, also included were some sweets (which were too shy to pose for a photo!!!), a sock brooch & a fridge magnet.

I got some Amazon vouchers for my birthday from Louise & Lyn and once again, had to wait until we got to the NW to use them. Since we’ve lived aboard I’ve wanted a cast iron pot to cook on the fire with. Needless to say, we’ve had lots of different stews this week. It’ll be interesting to see if our gas lasts longer now I’m cooking on the fire & cooking potatoes in their jackets in the ashes tray.

Early morning at Rufford.

Winter in West Lancashire

This will be our 3^rd winter in West Lancashire, it’s ideal as we are close to 2/3 of our children and all the friends we’ve made in the area.

There are very few boats moving at the moment as most people moor up for winter. So to our delight we were able to moor right outside Aldi at Leigh to restock the cupboards. It was Halloween and the Waterside Inn had a kiddies disco, which we were unaware of when we went in for a pint.

We spent a damp and misty few days at Abram on the outskirts of Wigan where we teamed up with Carole & Colin on The Wool boat for a few pints and then travelled around Wigan with them. The landscape in the area is so scarred from the subsidence of the coal mines. The canal has also subsided and 3 locks have been removed and the canal banks raised to compensate. Where we moored at Abram there used to be two locks.

 There are a lot of renovations going on in the Wigan Pier area, so may be when we next cruise by it’ll all be finished.

 We spent a couple of days at Appley Bridge and strolled up to Fairy Glen. 

 

We’ve never seen the waterfall so full before.

 

The Canal & River Trust (CRT) let us know in June where they are doing planned essential repairs over winter. We knew the Rufford Branch of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal would be closed from next Monday, 11^th November for 3 weeks, so a 3^rd party could work on a railway bridge. 

But there is now an emergency stoppage as the top of one of the gate posts on lock 2 on the branch has sheared off. So, we are mooring in Burscough tonight. We strolled to have a look at the problem.

The repairs are due to be done tomorrow. Once the bottom gate of lock to is repaired the stretch of canal needs to be refilled and all before 11^th. We’ll be down there in the morning ready to take a few snaps.

Because the canal is empty it was so good to see the clough ground paddles. I do struggle to lift these paddles and usually end up taking the boat down the locks as John’s obviously much stronger than me!!!