Balsam bash

We spend father’s day afternoon in Appley Bridge community meadow & along the tow path helping with the fight to overcome the plague of Himalayan Balsam, along with Heather, Jason and the children. Pull it up, snap it and stamp on it. I understand the seeds were imported on the bails of cotton used in the northern mills. The plants are huge and smother the native wild flowers. Last year we saw some of the seed pods popping and I got hit in the face by them, the seeds shower a long distance. 

 

 

 

We didn’t capture a photo of our big bucket of elderflowers that we all gathered. They have been transformed into a big 6 litre batch of elderflower cordial that is now bottled and is lovely. The fermenting bucket is also full and fermenting away beautifully.

Monday we walked up to Ashurst’s Beacon in the drizzle, which luckily stopped as we got to the top. It was a tremendous view over Liverpool and beyond to Wales, Blackpool and the Lake District beyond. We did a good bit more balsam bashing that day too, very satisfying!!

 

 

Tuesday we were all set to head to Burscough when we noticed a tree had fallen over the canal slightly ahead. The CRT lads arrived with a little hand saw, which they were able to clear the tow path with. It was late afternoon before the contractors arrived with a little boat, long ropes and a few chain saws. They chopped up a good bit to clear a narrow channel and tied a big branch to the off side of the canal and they plannd to return in the morning to chop the rest up. There were 3 boats each side of the stoppage and only one headed off from each way at about tea time. We stayed put for another night and headed through the gap they’d made before they started work again on Wednesday.

Steam and engines

We’ve spent our allotted 7 days cruising the Bridgewater Canal, it’s privately owned by the Manchester Ship Canal Co, that owns a good bit of land & property. I quite fancied going all the way to the end at Runcorn, but we battened down the hatches & sat by the fire several days due to the heavy rain.

 

I had a lovely evening strolling around my favourite shopping centre, The Trafford Centre, again gazing at the murals & statues, without spending a single penny. John on the other hand took some lovely photos of the sunset & reflections.

 

We got as far a Lymm and had a few damp days there, moored just a few yards from 3 pubs & a fish ’n’ chip shop, which were down a quaint little cobbled street. We decided to have a stroll when it was dry & didn’t get very far before we heard the toooot tooot of a steam whistle. We’ve met quite a few steam narrow boats but the sound wasn’t coming from the canal. Then we had a bit of a chase to find the engine. The steam engine was parked just down from our boat. 

The Bridgwater Canal is quite wide & easy to moor along. We spent a night under the watchful eye of some of the canals forefathers, Eggerton, Brindly & Gilbert. We both kept being startled when we looked out of the window by the iron statues.

John had read in a canal guide about Sale’s miniature railway and as we cruised past we heard the tiny toot toots of the models. So screeching to a halt, well a lot of reverse and he ran back to have a peek.

Our final mooring place on the Bridgewater Canal was Astley Green to visit the Pit Museum. It has the only remaining pit head gear in Lancashire . The shaft was a massive 3000 feet deep, which was in filled when the pit closed in the 1970’s. They have a huge engine that lifted the coal & miners from the coal face. The engine was once steam driven, but now powered by generators and compressors which produce the compressed air. The volunteers were speedily trying to fit their new compressors, we say new, as they are quite old but were donated by a firm that was upgrading, so sadly we didn’t see it working. 

 

Quite a few evenings we’ve had lovely sunsets. Last week we saw & heard a really bad storm behind us, we caught a few drops of rain from the edge. In-fact Ada & Dale in Chorley had huge hail stones that made holes in their young sunflowers leaves. We’re guessing the reservoirs that supply the upper Leeds & Liverpool Canal will be much fuller after all this rain. 

Times flies

Wheelton

Wow, time flies when you’re having fun. It seems ages ago we spent about 3 weeks near Chorley before heading back down Wigan flight. We paired with another boat for the t rip down the flight that went smoothly, mainly due to the excellent Wigan flight VLK’s who went ahead & got the locks ready for us. 

 

Heather and the children came for a day while we were at Chorley to catch tadpoles.

We were on a mission to get to Tarleton once we got down all those Wigan locks, as we’d promised to pick the kids up from school as Heather & Jason were working. We had a lovely evening cruise to Rufford once we’d had fish & chips after the childrens swimming lessons.

 

Last weekend was a fantastic family gathering at Little Singleton, near Blackpool, for my little sister Samantha’s 50^th birthday. There were 19 of us during the day and 12 of us stayed in a couple of caravans. We travelled the shortest distance and almost took the longest time to get there, our planned journey time was less than an hour by train. The signal man at Rufford Station came out of his signal box to inform us the train was running a little late and I noticed cows on the line. He was aware of the cows & some chaps arrived in their hi-vis to sort it out, which took ages, but quite amusing. The train was held at a red signal outside Preston Station due to an earlier problem. The platforms at Preston Stations were packed and we were told there hadn’t been any trains to either Blackpool Stations for 4 hours. So we toddled off to the bus station and arranged for brother-in-law Paul to pick us up. Saturday we had a morning stroll along Cleveleys beach before a bit of a celebration in the evening. Louise made a fantastic huge iced fancy type birthday cake. 

Cows, men & a train!!!

Using up the loo rolls!!!

I knitted Samantha 2 pairs of socks in blue tit & kingfisher coloured yarns.

Sunday most of us headed to Blackpool for some pier fun and fish and chips for tea.

 

 

 

Last week as all the Overells were off work/school so they travelled all way to stay with us 

(4 miles). It was our usual squash in and had great fun.

Last Friday Heather & the kids came bright and early for a breakdast of sausages & cake to celebrate John’s birthday.