Heather’s birthday

We travelled all of 4 miles & 3 swing bridges from Rufford to Tarleton to spend the day with Heather on her birthday. Heather & Jason both had the day off, dropped the kids at school & came to Tarleton to open Town Swing Bridge for us.

So our biggest baby absolutely loved having the ducks all to herself without her 3 babies wanting to feed them.

It was a very misty morning and the kingfishers kept us company along the way, but just too far away to take a snap.

There were lovely reflections going under Bank Bridge.

The trees are in bud, so spring is on the way.

 

Last weekend we strolled over the misty & very water logged Lancashire moss to Croston. As you can imaging we were very thirsty and had to have a couple of pints when we got there. It was just over an 8 mile round walk.

 

It was eerie seeing the tops of the wind turbines but not their stands!!

Anglezarke Moor in the distance at Chorley kept popping in and out of the mist.

Last Monday we caught the train to Liverpool for the day. We gave blood, mooched around the city and had tea & cake with our friends that have a winter mooring in Salthouse Dock.

In the evening we attended ‘Weaverpool’ a craft group held in the up-stairs of ‘10 Streets Market’, housed in an old warehouse. 10 Streets is an area backing onto the old disused docks, which is earmarked for a regeneration project. It was a varied group of young and old, doing knitting, weaving, embroidery, needle felting and spinning.

Happy New Year

Happy New year and decade to everyone. The boat looks very bare now all the decorations are down.

We saw the new year in moored with friends near ‘the wood yard’, on the outskirts of Burscough, Leeds & Liverpool Canal. We had a little bonfire which we sat around.

 

We had a 180º panoramic view towards the south & east and saw the midnight fireworks for miles around. It was easy to pick out Liverpool’s tremendous display.

There were some lovely sunrises over the old Burscough airfield.

 

The three grandchildren helped us moor at the wood yard, before we left Burscough though, we all went to Tesco for an ice cream for breakfast!!! 

 

It was a gorgeous day and we sat out all afternoon. The kids had fun helping us build a wood pile.

 

This was a very different Christmas for me, my first adult only one. Heather & family were in Scotland for the week at my sister’s in Dundee.

We went to stay a few days with Ada & Dale in Chorley. Edmund had his first Christmas off in 5 years and came up with Josh. We had an excellent time and I had one of Josh’s bubble gums, which I don’t think I’d had since I was a child!!!

We brought ourselves a joint Christmas present, an electric saw, which John tried out on New Years eve ready for our fire.

We brought the boat back down the Rufford Branch & it’s 7 locks and 5 swing bridges on Friday as lock 1 is having planned essential work done starting this week, it’ll be closed until March now.

We had our fantastic mini crew to hand and got all the way to Tarleton by lunch time. The kids worked really hard.

Magnus had a rainbow over his head.

The swans weren’t prepared to leave their bridge spot!!!

 

Once their dad had picked them up, we did a twilight cruise to Sollom, one of our favourite mooring spots.

We saw a huge gaggle of geese taking off and circling around in the dim light.

We’ve had a wonderful few days cruising and today I’ve had to scrub the floor to get rid of all the mud.