Two birthdays.

Happy 21^st birthday to Ada who came to crew (with Dale) for us as a special treat to do the Wigan 21 locks. We ascended the flight (yesterday) breasted to nb Emma Maye -'The Wool Boat', which meant we had an amazing lock crew of 5, which meant we made really good time of about 4 hours. We were slightly held up by a novice crew who had got their rope caught around their prop and their rather large rottie fell in too. It was warm and cloudy, we didn't notice how sun burnt Ada was getting, until the evening. We're now moored in Adlington where we'll stay for a few days.

AND happy 1^st birthday to nb Burnt Oak. Someone compared having a new boat built being similar to having a baby (how true).

Pre conceptual care – we had loads!!!! We spoke to several specialist before we chose one to help us.

Conception – occurred with the expert help of Gary at Colecraft Boats in Long Itchington. With a planned gestation period of 3 months.

Pregnancy – progressed well and we had lots of 'scan' photos as the boat developed in it's great big womb like warehouse.

Naming – this was a tricky one, we knew the boat was going to be born prematurely so needed to get a name sorted out. We chose a name that was special to us both. Burnt Oak where we met and lived when we got married and where my dad was born. Once she was all fitted out, we had to register her with the Canal and River Trust. We have to show a copy of her birth certificate in our window at all times.

Premature labour – occurred on 7^th July 2015 in the early hours of the morning. The labour was 4-5 hours long and was thankfully uneventful with a smooth journey on a juggernaut up the M6. 

Delivery – It required the boat having an assisted delivery by a huge crane. Cradled in massive straps Burnt Oak was lowered very gently into the canal basin at High Lane on the Macclesfield Canal. This beautiful water birth was so worth all the anxiety of awaiting. Although we didn't get to cut the cord I did get to hold it during the delivery. We were joined on our special day and Ada's 20^th birthday by Dale, Lyn, Kevin and Emma, who were there at the quay side and watched the whole event. This under developed boat was a healthy 60 feet long and 5,026kg (she put on weight fast once Peter's team got their hands on her, infact, she needed some of her ballast removed because she was too heavy once we moved aboard).

Prematurity – the neonatal intensive care team, Peter from Braidbar Boats in Higher Poynton and his assistant Andy were on-site when the second stage of labour commenced, which was when the boat was visible down the A6 on it's lorry. Peter made sure the stern gland was securely packed to ensure none of the canal water was ingested by the boat at it's delivery in the water. Peter had arranged special transport (another narrow boat to tow) for Burnt Oak to be taken to his boat yard where all the tricky neonatal work would take place. We knew this was going to be a long slow process of about 5 months. Peter assured us Burnt Oak would get the best care him and his team could offer to ensure we could take possession ASAP. We were able to visit as often as we could, but as it was over a 100 miles and with working we weren't able to go very often and when we couldn't visit he'd sent us photos.

Leaving work – was wonderful as we knew we'd need to dedicate the rest of our lives to Burnt Oak. Our work mates and friends were so kind and gave us gifts for Burnt Oak. The girls at L&D got us bolt cutters, an airer, secateurs, camping kettle at lots of other bits too. The B&T boys gave us some lovely booze (to wet the boat's head) and a voucher, that we got a rotary drier with. All youngsters need snugly things and the Bedfordshire Guild of Weavers Spinners & Dyers made a blanket for us.

Taking possession of Burnt Oak – there was a lot to learn about having our first boat, Peter had prepared a big workshop manual type health record for us to keep. We had fostered boats many times when we were on holiday in the past, but this was very different.

Teething problems – Peter knew there'd be teething problems and warned us of them. He was there like a flash when the serious ones occurred. He assured us she'd get over her teething issues pretty quickly.

So we've lived on Burnt Oak for 7 months now and feel we've got to know her pretty well and can't imagine what life was like before she entered ours. We have introduced her to lots of other boats at two festivals and is integrating well in the boating world. Even though narrow boats go back some 200-250 years we are educating Burnt Oak in modern technology, having her own blog, e-mail address and GPS.

As all new babies need loving and nurturing so does our beautiful 60 footer. We've made some hand spun rugs for the floors and John's needle felted some fluorescent green covers for her mooring pegs (so walkers don't trip on them). Naughty dogs have stolen her green tennis balls we'd got for the pegs. In addition, I've crochet some antimacassars for the arm chairs. We need to keep an eye on her blemishes and attend to them quickly so they don't rust, which is easy with regular washing. Unlike a real child Burnt Oak has gauges so we know how full her tanks are and keep her tummy full of diesel and the other water. To make sure her engine stays healthy we give her a fuel supplement.

John has twice painstakingly changed the oil to make sure she can run as well as her friends. Her potty only needs emptying about every 3-4 weeks, however, she does seem to need her wee pot emptying daily!!!! We need to make sure her ropes are tied properly as good restraints are essential when we're moored so she doesn't float off and get lost.

And then there's the check ups she needs to have for her whole life, to make sure she's in tip top condition and we are indeed safe in her too. She has super duper blacking on her bottom and this along with her stern gland shouldn't need any attention for about 4 years. When she's 4 we'll take her to a specialist unit to be gently lifted out of the water so she can have a full health check which includes a thorough examination of her bottom and we'll get certificates to prove this.

I now realise the beginning of this blog is too much like an obstetric report I had to do daily at work. So as I'm never going back to work lets call it a day now.

Keeping track of us.

John's brought a GPS with his birthday money from Louise. It runs with the Water Explorer programme so you can keep track of us. There's a link on the blog (as you've no doubt already seen).

We left Burscough mid morning Thursday after getting water and are now moored at Rufford, getting ready for our run to Tarleton to pick up Ada & Dale next Friday. We'll stay here until the beginning of next week then move nearer Heather & Jason's. We had a lovely run from Burscough and were lucky enough to have two volunteer lock keepers to help us down the first 3 locks on the Rufford Arm.

Friday morning we were up bright'n early to catch the bus to Tarleton to cheer Nikita and the other kids at Tarleton Primary School along on their sponsored jym jams jog. They'll have the option to keeping their jym jams on all day or change into uniform. We had bacon sarnies and did a bit of gardening at Heather's before catching the bus to Southport for some shopping.

Yesterday we caught the train to Preston to get the bits we weren't able to get Friday.

We left Eldonian Village earlier than planned on Monday 13^th as a lot of boats were going into the dock at Liverpool and the rest were making a hasty exit as our 24 hour police protection was stopping Monday evening. We were booked to go through the swing bridges on Thursday 16^th, so we headed to Litherland where we stayed for three nights. While we were at Litherland we went to the launderette to wash the winter duvet. 

We also strolled to Crosby beach to see the Gormley statues. There are 100 cast, naked statues of the sculptor over a 2km length of beach and 1km into the sea. Some of the statues on the duny foreshore were waist high in sand & some lower on the beach were all exposed and had barnacles on them, plus rather a lot of sea gull poo. John suggested I organise a yarn bombing session to give them all willy warmers in the winter.

On the Thursday we headed for the 09.30 bridge opening and carried onto Burscough, which was the longest trip in one go we've done so far, about 19.5 miles.

The Burscough Heritage weekend was excellent. There were several restored Mersey flats, the wide beam boats that did most of the transportation. Heather, Jason and the children joined us on Saturday, the weather was glorious. Nikita & Magnus were invited to accompany the morris dancers and played tambourine at the Wharf. Sunday afternoon, just as the heavens opened the home made raft race went by. The kids loved honking John's new super duper hooter at the rafts.

For father day, Heather & Jason picked us up to go for breakfast at the Wetherspoons in Ormskirk which was excellent.

 We've decided we don't want to be wild life photographers. We've been watching Mr & Mrs House Martin feeding their three fledglings and the moment we get out the camera the parents decided to take a very long break!!!!

6 months on Burnt Oak

This is so amazing, we've been living on Burnt Oak for half a year. We've got used to the life style very quickly and can't imagine living any other way. We've met lots of lovely people on other boats, many who've lived on them for many years, boat traders, walkers on the tow path, people in shops and at events. I can only think of one chap lately who was quite irate that there were 4 boats going through the swing bridge as he may miss his bus.

We started out at Poynton with rain, rain and more rain, leaving the tow path as complete bogs, at times it looked like a dog had shaken it's self in the boat with mud splattered from our clothes and boots. Then we were frozen in a few times and had a good bit of snow and that's when our boiler broke, oh, how pleased we were to have the fire, which was kept stoked and ran all night. We've had wind that blew us into to the side and that's where we had to stay. As the weather got warmer and we didn't need to have the fire on I felt somewhat uneasy, as if something wasn't quite right, but that

feeling passed very quickly. And now I fear I'll end up sun burnt so plaster myself with suntan lotion. Now we can look forward to going full circle, keeping the fire stoked and have stews bubbling away on it while we're wrapped up warm cruising along.

So how far have we gone? For our first 3 months we were trapped on the large stretch of the Macclesfield and Peak Forest Canals as the locks either side were closed for repairs. At times we were in danger of getting into trouble from the authorities for over staying, mainly because we were frozen in and couldn't move. Plus, we spent 2 weeks moored near Heather & Jason's. When we counted up our mileage we were totally amazed:-

326 miles, 197 locks and 54 swing/lift bridges.

We have stayed in Manchester and Liverpool, two cities we've never visited before and in some amazingly beautiful rural areas from the heights of the Peak District to the low flat reclaimed farm lands of West Lancashire.

We've been to two festival Ellesmere Port at Easter and have just left the IWA's festival celebrating the Leeds and Liverpool Canals 200^th year at Eldionain Village, Liverpool..

This is a very lazy life style on the one hand and quite labour intensive on the other. We need to plan where to get water & diesel. Sometimes we have a good long walk to replenish our food store and we can't store too much and don't have a freezer. During the winter we had coal, wood and gas delivered to us by the coal boat nb Alton. We just love our

composting loo which needs emptying every 2-4 weeks. The smell when you are near a pump out station or Elsan disposal point are horrendous, where as our loo smells earthy like my old compost heap at home when we empty it.

We are looking forward to our summer jaunt across the Pennines to Leeds. We're hoping to moor near Yarndale the wool festival in Skipton in September. John's promised to visit Fawcetts the Maltsters in Castleford, he used to speak to the office on the phone and only met the delivery chaps. Then head back to be near Heather & Jason's for winter.

Eldonian Village Canal Festival

We've just taken down the bunting after the festival which was held over the last two days. As the festival is celebrating the 200^th year of the Leeds & Liverpool canal I made black & white bunting to represent some of the main goods transported, cotton, limestone & coal, and our knitted bunting to represent wool. This was the first IWA festival we've been to on a boat and we've been quite disappointed with it. It appeared it was a village festival and not much of an Inland Waterways Association one. We had a shopping list of bits to get but there were no canalware traders. PLUS, shock

& horror, there was NO beer tent, just fizz beer in the community centre. We've been to lots of canal festivals organised by the IWA & other organisations and NEVER have we been to one without a beer tent!!!!!

 

There was quite a celebration on Sunday at the dock side in Liverpool as the Disney cruise liner 'Magic' was in port for a couple of days. There was a big screen erected on the quay showing Disney films and stalls selling goods too. All the little girls were in their Disney princess outfits, there was quite an atmosphere. In the evening we could hear the ship's horn echoing all the way up at the Eldonian Village playing Disney tunes, plus lasers in the sky and fireworks.

We arrived on the festival site last Thursday after spending the night at Litherland CRT services. We absolutely loved the journey into Liverpool as the industrial architecture was amazing. Many of the old warehouses are being still used or have been adapted retaining some character. The canal has water lillies growing in it and the most coot families

we've ever seen.

We are hoping to get to Burscough next weekend for their 200^th heritage celebrations.

It seems a long while ago we were at Tarleton and watched all the boats coming back from their trips over to the Lancaster Canal. I think entering the lock looks scarier than leaving it to head up the River Douglas.

Magnus had his first sleep over the day we moved from Tarleton for our slow meander towards

Liverpool for the festival. We did really well and eked out our water for three weeks, thanks to Heather letting us use her washing machine & shower.

Ada and Dale went to stay with Heather & Jason over the bank holiday weekend. This meant we had a nice gathering and big crew to move just a few yards from the 24 hour visitor mooring up one lock at Rufford.

We popped into the Hesketh Arms in Rufford and stumbled across the weekly meeting of the ukulele group. The organiser came to say hello to us as she recognised us from when we filled up with water a couple of days previously, she lives on a wide beam boat near the services. It was a fantastic evening with some 40 ukuleles including a bass one, penny whistles, wash boards and melodian. Then the next evening on John's birthday we toddled to the pub again. We thought it was busy the night before, but Tuesdays are quiz night and there was a guaranteed jackpot and the place was standing room only, and it's a massive pub, fantastic to see.

We moored in Burscough for a few days, where the 'Wool Boat' lives. We went to their knit and natter at The Farmer's Arms and they asked John to model Carole's latest jumper. We caught the train to Liverpool for the River Mersey Festival. The Albert Dock was crammed with narrow boats (most carried on to the Eldonian Village Festival). There was lots going on on the river and in the docks too.

We spent a night at Scarisbrick Marina so we could hook up electricity so I could make bunting for the festival, otherwise we'd need to run the engine the whole time I was sewing. Plus I was able to use their large washing machines too for our bedding & towels.

We had a surprise visit from Heather, Jason and the children on Magnus's 3^rd birthday the day before we were booked through the bridges.

We've had some amazingly warm sunny weather over the last few weeks. However, we've been shocked to see flooding in Dunstable and Poynton on the internet. Tomorrow we'll start heading for the other end of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal (which will take us all summer). We'll head back to Tarleton to pick up Ada & Dale next month. They are coming to celebrate her 21^st and the boat's 1^st birthdays by helping us get up the Wigan flight of 21 locks.

Moored at Tarleton

So we had planned to get to Tarleton on the Rufford Arm of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal where Heather lives for Christmas. So what, if we're 5 months late. This part of the canal leads onto the River Douglas which leads to the River Ribble through a sea lock, which looks pretty scary as the boats have to go against the tide. Maybe when we got a good bit of boating under our belts we may give it a go. This part of Lancashire is similar to East Anglia, as it's reclaimed land, very flat with drainage dykes. Heather actually lives in Hesketh Bank and the 'bank' is a short walk from her house. Over the last couple of years that Heather, Jason and their family have lived here we've walked along this stretch of the canal many a time and are able to direct all the boaters unfamiliar to the area where the amities are. It seems pretty weird walking home from Heather's house with no sense of dread of having to negotiate the glorious M6.

We are able to moor here for a maximum of 14 days and we're now up to day

12 over which time we've seen a brood of ducklings grow tremendously, however, there were 10 chicks originally and 8 now. Today we had a visit from Mr & Mrs swan showing off their 7 cygnets. We are following the CRT advice and not feeding our floating friends junk food (bread) and have gone through many kilos of porridge oats which the ducks like and lettuce for the swans. We spied Mrs moorhen with what looked like 7 hatchlings in the reeds opposite this afternoon.

There have just been three days of boats crossing the River Douglas and River Ribble to access the Lancaster Canal. The crossings are only possible when the tides are at a certain height and the weather is favourable. You need to book the passage with CRT who operate the lock for you. In addition you need an anchor, which we've not got yet. However, we've both just had rather handsome tax rebates, so I guess the top of our spend list is an anchor, 4 metres of chain and at least 18 metres of rope. If you should break down on the River Ribble and the anchor fails next stop is north America or if you're lucky Ireland or the Isle of Man!!!! The mooring here was full when the boats were arriving for the second departure day, so we invited a boat to double moor with us and then we realised it was one of our boat's elder sisters 'Destiny' '151'.

We took the three grandchildren out to 'their' bank and watched the boats heading up the river. Now for the next 3 days there are boats heading back here.

It's been so lovely to see the family every day and meet Nikita from school. Magnus is having his first sleepover on Wednesday. Luckily, we have a larger than usual water tank which still has >1/4 in it. That's thanks to Heather letting us use her washing machine as there aren't any water taps on this stretch.

We are booked to go to the IWA festival mid June so have another couple of weeks to kill before we head to Liverpool. As the canal goes under some major roads with swing bridges on it's way to Liverpool the CRT operate them and only allow passage twice a day so we are booked in for Wednesday 8^th June at 13.00. It's all a short drive from Heather & Jason's. The festival is to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal opening. So I'm planning to make some black and white bunting to represent the two main commodities transported on the canal, coal and cotton. I need to sort out the material before we get too far from Tarleton as I've given Jason my sewing machine, which I'll need to borrow.

As we left Appley Deep Lock we saw President, the heritage steam narrow boat & it's butty Kildare. They had been to an event at Liverpool

.

We had hoped to moor at Parbold on our journey to Tarleton, however, there wasn't any spaces so we carried on and moored beside The Ring'o Bells pub, Lathom. There's a big slip way there which is where the 'night soil' from Liverpool was unloaded as manure for the fields. A little muck spreading is pretty awful, but several barges each night of this must've left quite an odour haze over the area. The soil does look amazing though. We found an excellent farm shop which sells all local meet and vegetables. They sell unusual cuts of beef and steak, needless to say, we probably could have done a fortnight's shopping with what we spent in there, but it really was worth it.

Good-bye Manchester

We stayed in Manchester city centre for 10 days at two different moorings. ^th April. We'd run out of coal so took a walk to the nearest petrol station a mile away to get some more. As we left the petrol station's forecourt with 4 bags of coal on our wheely barrow a chap ran after us, “are you on a boat? Let me give you a lift”, which was wonderful as the snow had changed to very heavy rain by that point. He lives on a narrow boat in a permanent moorings in the city. He recommended a pub to us, The Jolly Angler, a stones throw from our boat, so we met him there in the evening to buy him a pint.

The first was at Paradise Wharf on the Ashton Canal, sandwiched between new flats but had views to old warehouses that had been converted into flats. It was a busy tow path as we were near Piccadilly Station. It was good to see the massive stream of people going to the Manchester City football ground when they played Real Madrid and they were all in good spirits. The weather changed rapidly and we had snow on 28

We caught the Metrolink tram to Ashton-under-Lyme as we hadn't had enough time when Edmund was with us to look at Portland Museum. An excellent museum of local history. Previously we'd strolled through the town centre in the evening & it was like a ghost town, however, on a Saturday lunch time it's very busy.

We visited Abakhan's as it's the only yarn shop in Manchester now. It happened to be 'yarn shop day', with 15% off and I won a pair of knitting needles too. So that trip sorted out gifts for people's birthdays.

Manchester's 'People's Museum' was interesting to visit, mainly showing how politics had affected the area over the millennia. Sadly we didn't get to the Science Museum, which looked excellent through the window, it was absolutely heaving with families, probably because the weather was SO wet, windy and cold.

Our second moorings in the city was at the newly developed New Islington Basin (where John felt at home having been born in the 'other' Islington). There was a lot of construction still going on, a school and an 8 story block of apartments. It was very entertaining watching 3 cranes working in close proximity to each other. There were excellent facilities here for visiting and permanently moored boats, I got lots of washing done in their big machines at £2/wash. The weather really perked up while we were there and allowed us to sit out in the sun. We had a delivery of coal, gas and logs from Brian from who has coalboat nb Alton, he delivers by road to Manchester.

We left New Islington last Thursday and headed down the infamous Rochdale 9 locks (where we'd walked the week before!!!!).

We unexpectedly ran aground in the pound between the locks just outside the marina and managed to pole ourselves off of the underwater obstruction. We had been prior warned the Rochdale canal has a lot of water which can make opening the top gates difficult, this was very true. We had to tie the bow rope onto the gate and put the boat into full reverse while the one of us pushed the gate with all their might. In the first lock we watched as a chap evacuate his bowels and then went onto prepare his drugs with another chap and inject them. It seemed as if we were in that lock for ages as neither of us wanted to venture over to the other side to work the paddle gear where the chaps were. Thank goodness they were oblivious to us working the lock. The rest of the flight was entertaining in a much more pleasant way.

We'd planned to moor at Castlefield, an area steeped in history and the beginning of the Bridgewater Canal (the first canal dug). Sadly, there were no mooring spaces so we headed off and went passed Manchester United football ground.

We found a mooring space right beside The Trafford Centre, what an amazing place with it's marble pillars, statues and murals. We spent a whole day there gazing at the architecture and didn't spend a single penny!!! We decided to move on on Saturday as there was a lot of music and shouting over some loud speakers. We had to investigate the commotion early in the morning.

There was a car park full of people queueing at the events centre to enter the X-Factor!!!

View from Barton swing bridge

We then moored at Astley Green on the Bridgewater Canal in view of the pit head gear at the mining museum. We took a stroll into Leigh the next town along, where the Bridgewater ends and the Leeds & Liverpool begins. This whole area has a mining & cotton mill history.

Today we met up with a hire boat which had a large and knowledgeable crew which made for an easy transit through Wigan.

We stopped for lunch in Wigan before going past Wigan Pier and through the next two locks without our helpers. We are now moored at Crooke and almost at Heather and Jason's. What an amazing day with the sun out all day and temperatures over 25c.

Tomorrow we'll head towards Parbold, Burscough and onto Tarleton where we'll have a couple of weeks car-booting (all our things that Heather & Jason have stored in their garage for us),before heading off to Liverpool.