Easter 2022

We’ve had a fairly lazy Easter, pottering around and spring-cleaning. The brass is glowing and the port side and roof are clean (for now)!!

John did a full oil and filter change on the engine.

As usual, we’ve had some glorious sunsets. John snapped a few trains on the West Coast mainline.

Here we are turning out onto the Shropshire Union Canal at Barbridge Junction from the Middlewich Branch. This is our first trip south on this canal.

We cruised past the beginning of the Llangollen Canal and moored up. We strolled back to look at the first few locks on the canal that leads to Wales.

Just about all the bridges have metal rubbing strips, which protected the brick work from the tow-ropes. The deep grooves show how busy this ‘super slow-way’ was in its day.

At Audlem, we moored in-between the first couple of locks on the flight of 15.

The Shropshire Union Canal has many cuttings. Approaching Tyrley locks in a shallow cutting.

Woodseaves Cutting has suffered quite a lot of landslides and fallen trees. There is a 2 mile/hour speed limit, and it’s impossible to go faster as you can hear the large bits of debris under the boat!!

A tree stump, decorated with its Easter bonnet.

There are spectacularly high bridges along this stretch.

It was busy at Norbury Junction for the long weekend. We stayed just a couple of nights there.

This nest is right by the bridge over the junction. However, we’ve seen many swan’s nests, nestled in the reeds.

As we explored Market Drayton, we stumbled across Jules Brewery. So we just had to have a pint at its brewery tap.

We are having a go at growing some garlic and to keep it company we have our first 

on-board tomato plants.

 

 My scrappy blanket made with ends of sock yarn has come to a halt as I’ve run out of scraps. It’s a perfect size for my garden chair at the moment.