What a glorious bank holiday weekend we’ve just had. We opened Jubilee Fibres all three days, near Rufford Old Hall (NT house). The towpath encompasses the hall’s circular walk, so we had lots of customers.
The Sunday afternoon we had 9 visitors!! Samantha, my youngest sister was staying with Ada & Dale, so Heather & her crew came too. It’s so wonderful to be able to have our big family gatherings in ‘real life’ & not on the computer.
Out trip to Liverpool seems an age away. We stayed a few days at Litherland and strolled to Crosby beach. We’ve never seen the Gormley statues when the tide was in. It was a lovely sunny day, so the sea water was really warm to paddle in.
Our next stop was Lydiate as several boaters had told us how great The Scotch Piper pub was. It’s thought to be the oldest pub in Lancashire (now in the renamed Merseyside).
We celebrated our 39th anniversary there with a massive cheese board.
The following day there was a vintage car meet at the pub, so it’d be rude not to go back to see the cars.
There were lots of huge blackberries where we moored, but they were pretty sour. So, we picked 1.5 kg, made a stock and naturally dyed lots of wool to sell.
It’s good to be able to have the wee ones to stay one at a time (unlike boat school where all 5 of us were crammed in). Lance came first. We moored close to Fairy Glen, one of his favourite places, near where they used to live.
We’d had lots of rain and the waterfall & steams were flowing fast.
We stopped off for a pint on our way back from the glen and also did some Himalayan balsam bashing.
On to Burscough, were our bit of towpath had lots of cherry-plum & damson trees. Lance made 5lb jam.
He was a great help when nan walked through the boat with dry mud on her boots, bless him.
He brought a big bag of Hunson’s fluff, which he drum-carded & we spun into yarn.
Being such a little lad he’s ideal to send into the engine bay to grease the stern gland.
John went to Manchester with our friend Colin, who’s a reporter for ‘Towpath Talk’, a monthly publication. Sadly, a boat had sunk in a lock and they went to watch RCR (the boat RAC) pump out the water and re-float it so the canal could be re-opened.
Magnus’ stay was great fun too. His favourite part was picking the cherry-plums and making…...yes, another 5lb of jam.
He was so eager to help with boat chores.
He opened the swing bridges, helped get water and moor the boat. Not only that, but he hammered the mooring pins in all by himself!!
He was fascinated by this sign in someone’s garden!!!
He enjoyed coming to knit & natter at the pub, where he French knitted himself a necklace. The following week at knit & natter I had a very proud nanny moment, when one of the locals asked where he was and said what a very well-behaved lad he was.
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