Cheers

It’s been so nice to be able to go for a pint, especially as April’s weather’s been fantastic.

We visited the Rivington Brewery outdoor tap room, with views over the reservoir and up to Rivington Pike and Winter Hill beyond. Their beers were served very cold and are modern highly hopped, citrusy type beers. The maltiest beer they had was a lager brewed in Manchester. However, the coffee stout at 8%abv was rather yummy, but far too strong for an afternoon in the middle of a 10-mile circular walk!

For lunch, we stopped off at Rivington Bowls club to watch a game and view the lower reservoir from its end.

I’ve been taking my spinning out with me to do on our walks.

Shore of Lower Rivington Reservoir

River Douglas for

 

 

 

 

 

The signs of spring are all around us. The most annoying being the Canada geese honking at antisocial times!! They are all sitting on their nests. We have seen some rather large duckling families.

 

 The bluebells are stunning in the woods and along the hedges.

Trees in blossom as we cruise along.

 

We moored for a week above Wigan. From the towpath we could see a lovely meadow below, with deer & pheasants. Across the canal was Haigh Golf Club.

Breathtaking sunsets over the meadow.

It is difficult to imagine what Wigan would have been like at its busiest, with its numerous coal mines and steel works scarring and polluting the area. Now these scarred areas are beautiful parks, nature reserves and golf courses.

We walked to the top of a huge slag heap, by one of the locks on the Wigan flight. The steep hill was formed from the waste from one of the foundries. The views from the top were amazing.

John’s been busy weaving.

We opened our Jubilee Fibres shop for the first time in almost a year last week.

As usual, we put out our flags and bunting for St. George’s Day.

I’ve finished knitting John’s jumper with genuine Icelandic wool that I’ve had for a couple of years now. He's pictured with one of our three NEIGHbours for the next few days!!

Heather’s been saving the fluff from their rescue dog Hunson for a while now. They both popped in today as we’re just a couple of miles from them and I spun it up, it’s really soft.

 

Wonderful to cruise again

So after 4 months of lockdown and moored near Bagganley Bridge 78 on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal we can cruise again. We won’t be going too far afield, as we need to have our second injections next month.

This spot was ideal for when we were homeschooling.

The three grandchildren came to stay Easter week and were out picking wild garlic for our beef stew as soon as they arrived.

We headed off to get diesel and spent a couple of nights near the young River Douglas, Adlington (or river duckless as one of the wee ones calls it!!!). They used to live at the end of the River Douglas where it was tidal, very muddy and joined to the mouth of the River Ribble.

As we set off we realised it was going to be  gloriously warm for a few days, which meant we had to do an emergency sun cream shop after we'd only been cruising for a short while.  We moored at Cowling slipway. This was a prefect spot to sort out the bow locker.

The children had a great time litter picking, magnet fishing and doing chalk drawings on the concrete.

The crew could hardly wait to see the river and as soon as we moored John took them down to a little ford, where they paddled way above their wellies!!

Just the other side of the river valley was a motorbike scrambling track, very entertaining to watch as there was a big hill climb in view of the boat.

The disused Lancashire Union Railway, now a cycle path runs parallel with the canal, so we had to explore that.

It goes through some large cuttings and under an aqueduct under the canal.

Once again we had a kiddies bake off, each making a batch of 6 hot cross buns.

While we were busy in the galley kneading the dough we didn’t know there was an emergency occurring at the bridge ahead of us, until the air ambulance circled very low over us as it was landing in a field. We understand someone had tripped, fallen into the canal and broken their ankle.

A good while later the land paramedics passed us with all their kit. They had asked for the air ambulance as the nearest place they could park was 2 miles away!!

 

As the helicopter stared up to leave it must have startled some deer as they ran past in the field.

Once the emergency was over we headed off towards home and under what we have named ‘paramedic bridge’ to get diesel.

As we knew we were going to be cruising off, we went up Healy Nab, on the edge of the West Lancashire Moors to watch the sunset over Chorley.

We could see the Ribble estuary, Southport, Blackpool and the wind turbines out in the Mersey estuary.

The last few days of the holidays we spent between the house and boat. We had a rather chilly breakfast in the park opposite the house. We couldn’t sit on the seat as it was too icy!!

Most afternoons we spent at the boat and the kids climbed the towpath trees beside us.

Last weekend we hired a van and helped Ada & Dale move about ½ a mile from their rented house to their very own first home.

I had a lovely lie in yesterday watching the water reflections on the ceiling.