Frogs love songs!!

 

So……..the evening before last we kept hearing a weird squeaking noise between the bank and the boat, we though a mole may have fallen into the canal. With torches in hand we loosened the mooring ropes & pushed the boat away from the bank. Oh, may be the frog can’t get out with the metal piling on the bank, John got our dying sieve & lifted it out, oh gosh, it was 2 frogs tightly locked together & on closer inspection there were lots of frogs, so we put the two amorous frogs back into the canal. Last night same noise occurred, guess we’ll be expecting lots of tadpoles this spring.

Rufford sunset

Flaming February we ask ourselves. No fire on today, all the doors & windows open & it’s 19c in here. This time last year the ‘beast from the east’ was just taking hold and we were frozen in at Marsworth!!!

The half term week that Nikita was here went SO fast. Her friend joined Heather, Jason and the boys on Sunday for a ride & help us down the Rufford Branch locks. The kids are excellent crew member. We all had great fun as the sun shone and it was another lovely warm day.

Fairy Glen

Nikita is staying with us for the half term holiday and we’d booked to go into Salthouse Dock for the week, however, CRT rang us last week as there are complications with planned work to replace a bridge and the canal’s now closed. So we are just leisurely pootling up and down the canal. We got up the locks on the Rufford Branch in no time at all as Nikita is so much bigger and can do the paddles & push the gates all by herself. Today we met Heather and the two boys at Fairy Glen near Parbold, for a picnic. We’re moored a short walk away by the disused locks at Appley. I took a black sack & our grabber to do a litter pick along the glen & footpaths. There was very little actual rubbish but my sack was quite heavy with the loads of dog poo bags that had just been left. 

 

Yesterday we strolled to ‘Cast North West’ (http://www.castnw.net/) a charity fishing & farming centre for youngster with learning & social disabilities, in Newburgh near Parbold. We had an excellent lunch in the cafe and had a stroll around to look at the animals. 

 

Nikita and John are making needle felted llamas and Nikita has started knitting a scarf. Plus, she loves drawing and has done lots in her sketch pad.

We hired a car last week for a few days to attend my young cousin Nick’s funeral near Peterborough. It was a very difficult time for his sister Jen and her family from Australia who were only able to stay for a week. It was so lovely to see Jen, Jason, Danny & Joe along with lots of other family members.

 

A quick cold snap!

 

 

The end of January & beginning of February have seen a quick cold snap, with a sprinkle of snow and a thin sheet of ice on the canal & marina, all very mild compared to our experience of the ‘beast from the east’ last year. I think we came off quite lightly up here in the north west as when we travelled to London (on the train) at the weekend there was a good bit of snow in Bedfordshire over the Dunstable Downs.

 

 

 

Colin & Carole from ‘The Wool Boat’ gave us some free tickets to a craft show at Events City, beside the Trafford Centre, Manchester, which we attended last Friday. We travelled on the train & a bus to get there. It was a nice small event with a varied selection of crafts and we did a little bit of shopping. I was quite excited at being able to go back to the Trafford Centre, not to look at the shops but to watch the fountains, gaze at the amazing murals & statues. We had our tea in food hall there, which is modelled on the inside of a cruise ship.

 

 







 

The following day we hopped back onto the train to London to attend a London Transport (LT) reunion at The Met Bar, Baker Street. All the LT people remember the pub when it used to be the HQ for the Metropolitan Line. It was lovely to catch up with people we’ve not seen for years. Edmund popped in to see us after he’d finished work. We then went home with Lyn & Kevin to St. Neots for a couple of days.

Today we have had torrential rain to wash away the last bit of ice that was hanging around in the water.