Two birthdays

 

We had a lovely time a couple of weeks ago at Nikita’s super villain 7^th birthday party which fell at the weekend. Heather & Jason had decorated the house amazingly, bars on the windows, 7’s all over the walls and a bat cave under the stairs. Plus, the food was themed too, cryptonite jelly, asteroid nuggets & pizza the hut.

 

And Heather’s 30^th birthday is next Monday. It was snowing this time 30 years ago, our car had been stolen and we travelled to hospital in the brewery’s old van which had a broken passenger seat!! Plus, there was a telephone strike on, (no mobile phones back then), which meant we couldn’t let anyone know she’d been born. John had to drive to Edgware to let everyone know.

This morning we moved from Sollom to Tarleton ready for a weekend of birthday celebrations as Ada & Dale are coming up for a long weekend. It’s so nice to be on proper moorings with bollards to tie to and hard standing. The tow path at Sollom was very muddy, but amazingly quite with hardly anyone walking by.

Yesterday we walked to Mere Bow, a gentle 6 mile stroll there and back as it’s flatter than the Fens here and the soil is just as black. We had lunch at Legh Arms, it was lovely, especially the most AMAZING crème brulee I’ve ever had . We’ve been to the sister pub the Hop Vine in Burscough.

I’ve been to the knit and natter at The Farmers Arms in Burscough quite a few times now. I just ran up to the village to go today and missed the bus by the skin of my teeth, not to worry. When John came a few weeks back he impressed everyone by making a set of woven coaster on his little loom. So, if you’d like some coasters, even if you’ve got some already just let us know. I need to get down to grafting the toes on 3 pairs of socks I’ve knitted. I’ve spun up the purple/pinkish wool/silk blend fibre I was given by P&M Woolcraft when I left the Bedfordshire Guild of Weavers Spinners & Dyers. I’ve plyed it with similar colours to make a yarn that gets gradually darker purple from pale pink. And I’ve started knitting a scarf with it, quite a few of the girls at The Farmers Arms are making the same scarf. 

 

At last I've made a long skinny triangular rag rug for beside the fire to put the fire tools and coal bucket on.  The majority of the material is what I dyed in the autumn with acorns.  Plus some old sweat shirt of John's and a jumper of my dad's that had
been put through the wash & shrunk.

 

 

John has his second dose of mead fermenting away by the fire. I think our last bottles of blackberry wine and mead will be consumed this weekend.

 

We had hoped to head south in March when the locks on the Rufford Branch reopen after their repairs. However, there are works on the Bridgewater Canal that are going to over run until mid June. So our plan to go to Crick Boat Show at the end of May is totally out. So we’ve booked to go into Salthouse Dock, Liverpool instead. It’s something we’d planned to do at some point in the future. You can stay free for 7 days and the pontoons have free electric hook up and water supplied. If you stay longer than 7 days it cost £20/day. We have been told if you go out of the dock and return a few days later it’s free again, so that’s what we’ve booked to do. We’ll probably catch the sea cat to the Isle of Man for a few days.

Happy New Year

 

We are currently moored at Tarleton, which is a short walk from Heather & Jason’s, where we have enjoyed two Christmas dinners & new year too.

Our first Christmas dinner was towards the beginning of December as Edmund was working over Christmas. So him, Ada and Dale came up, it just so happened to be a double celebration as Ada and Dale announced their engagement.

So we had a great weekend, which went far too fast. We had our dinner quite late in the day as Nikita and Magnus had swimming tests for which they both got a certificate and badge. Once Heather was home from the kid’s swimming we toasted Ada & Dale with some bubbly, plus we’d brought some mistletoe too, kisses all round!!! We had a 3 bird roast with all the trimmings. The youngsters enjoyed a game of Christmas twister. We needed to head off to Rufford the week after to get water and to make sure we don’t get a parking ticket as we’re only allowed to moor in the same place for 14 days. We returned to Tarleton on Christmas Eve.

 

 

On the real Christmas day Heather came to pick us up at 06.45. When we got to the house Ada, Dale, Jason & the children were all eagerly waiting to come down stairs. All the parcels were opened in record time and the floor scattered with paper.

 

Jason cooked another lovely dinner, turkey this time. 

Boxing Day everyone descended on us for breakfast, pigs in blankets & rolls which they brought with them, all hot and ready to eat. Then, we headed off to the pantomime (oh yes we did!!!!) in Southport. It was Snow White and Lance managed to sleep thought the second half.

Samantha, Paul and Blue stopped off for a couple of days on their way back from Christmas in Sheffield. They stayed one night at Heather & Jason’s and one here. As usual the time went too fast. We had a couple of bright, fresh walks along the bank of the River Douglas near the Overells and the next day where it runs parallel with the canal, where we are moored. We all got thoroughly muddy and had a great time. When Samantha & Paul left Nikita came to stay for a couple of days.

We stayed at Heather & Jason’s for new year and Nikita stayed up. The fireworks at midnight frightened the boys and they both ended up too. We’ll stay at Tarleton until we run out of water & then we’ll take a run to Rufford to fill up.

Way back in November we ended up staying in Wigan a few more days than planned due to gale force winds along with rain and hail. However, this did mean we were able to visit ‘Wigan Central’, the micro pub we discovered in July. It’s fitted out like a station and has the actual train times for the two Wigan Stations on display screens.

 

On Tuesday 22^nd November we made a run for it as the weather was fine and moored at ‘The Ring ‘O Bells’ before heading onto the Rufford Branch. When we got to the Rufford Branch it appeared someone had come up the locks the day before and not closed the top lock gates at each lock. Lock 4’s bottom gates are VERY leaky, that consequently lead to two pounds draining completely. There was a boat moored in one of the pounds which was almost tipping over. Canal & River Trust (CRT) had contacted the owner as they weren’t on the boat and there was a danger of it filling with water before it refloated. A CRT chap was already on the case and running water through to refill the pounds, he estimated it could take about 3 hours, which actually ended up as 5 hours. John was out adjusting the water flow and keeping an eye on the stranded boat. This was the prefect opportunity for me to prepare my pickling vinegar and prepare the onions and red cabbage for pickling.

We spent a couple of weeks above Rufford lock. So this is us now, on the Rufford Branch until mid March. There are planned works on the branch near the locks. We were frozen in a couple of mornings which is quite magical. We left the boat for a couple of days while we went down south on the train and stayed with Lyn and Kevin, to attend our friend Pat’s funeral. He was an apprentice with John on London Transport and was the same age as John.

We are now starting to plan what we’ll do over the next few months on this short stretch of canal. The main problem is the phone signal is pretty bad down on the canal at Tarleton and the internet's slow too. We’ll probably go to Scotland on the train to visit Samantha & Paul for a few days. In addition we’ll spend days out on the train. Plus, Heather’s doing some overtime while we’re here so we can take Nikita to school & look after the boys.

One whole year aboard nb Burnt Oak

Dec 15 Bugsworth

Feb 16 Bollington

Jan 16 Poynton

So after so many years of dreaming of living on our own boat we have actually been living ‘our dream’ for the last year. We always imagined we’d simply love living on a boat, but there was always a chance that we might not, once we’d actually done it…..but NO it’s such an amazing way of life. We have quite a lot of ‘mod cons’, but it’s still quite a labour intensive way of life which makes for never a dull moment and keeps us fit.

March 16 bridge 86 Macc canal

May 16 Mancester

April 16 Marple aquaduct

So how far have we have travelled? 665 miles and been through 437 locks and 183 swing bridges. We have travelled a good way this last year, but nowhere near as far as quite a few other boaters we’ve met. We’ve attended 4 canal festival and a 2 wool festivals, we volunteered at some of them too.

Our first 4 months aboard we were trapped on the lock free beautiful Macclesfield and Peak Forest Canals, due to winter stoppages. This gave us an excellent chance to really get used to our boat. Within a few days of moving aboard we were frozen in, which was magical. We’ve seen the River Mersey from both sides, Ellesmere Port for the Easter Historic Boat Gathering (we were made very welcome even though Burnt Oak was only a few months old) and Liverpool where we were at the IWA festival. We have cruised from Liverpool to Leeds and taken part in lots of the canal’s bicentenary celebrations. We loved staying in Manchester during the spring. Due to the incredible height of most of these canals, we’ve been up and down some interesting flights of locks. Bosley and Marple flights were our first, with Ashton, Rochdale and Wigan. In addition the staircase locks at Chester 3 rise, Bingley 5 and 3 rise, to name just a few.

June 16 Onthe way to Liverpool

August 16 East Marton

July 16 on the way to Blackburn Fest

We have met lots of great boaters, volunteers & CRT staff, walkers and fishermen, some who we have made good friendships with. We’ve moored several times with other Braidbar boats.

Quite a few people have come to stay with us over the summer. Ada for her 21^st birthday & Dale to help us up the Wigan flight of 21 locks and Edmund to help us back down.

I have almost finished all my incomplete knitting projects in addition to doing a little spinning too. We have done natural solar and traditional dying, made locker hook and rag rugs for our floors. John has made blackberry wine and mead, which will be bottled before Christmas. I have made blackberry and apple jam, plus my usual pickled onions, red cabbage and eggs. I used canalside crab apples in my mince meat this year.

And then there’s all the pubs in quaint little villages and larger towns we’ve visited along the way. I keep a daily journal as it’s so easy to forget what we did yesterday yet alone last week/month.

Sept 16 The Twisties

Nov 16 Rufford branch

Oct 16 Burscough

We have been down south just twice this year and it felt quite comforting to be with everyone who had the same accents as us!!!!

This winter is going to be fantastic being so close to Heather & Jason’s. However, we’ve only got a very short 4-5 mile stretch of canal from Tarleton to Rufford to travel due to the planned winter stoppages.

For our second year afloat we’ll head off of the Rufford Branch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal as soon as all the winter works have been completed in March. Probably first stop Poynton to have a couple of bits sorted on the boat and then onto the Midlands.

And I don’t think we’ll ever get bored with seeing kingfishers just about every day, even on the urban stretches of canal.

And now I need to up date our blog with the events of the end of November & early December........

Dec 16

Buckets of hail stone being thrown at the roof!!!!

We’ve been moored in Wigan since Sunday, we had planned to take a couple of days to get here with a stop over at Crooke. However, there was a 3 MILE fishing competition last Sunday. Boaters have the right to moor anywhere and the fishermen have to move for us. We had to pass all the chaps close to the bank so as to reduce disturbing their catch too much. They were telling us it was a league competition. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to get, probably 5 or 6 of them to shift, so we ended up in Wigan. We decided to cruise here to see the chiropractor as we’ve neglected ourselves over the last year, as we always used to have a routine manipulation every few months.

It’s a good job we didn’t need to leave Wigan this week as we’ve both had a rather nasty tummy bug, which lasted a couple of days and vandals opened the paddles on the two locks directly below us, completely emptying about 2 miles of canal. It’s taken 3 days to refill the section which has due to reopen tomorrow.

And, today the weather’s totally pants, it sounds like someone’s been throwing buckets of hail stones at the roof since the wee hours of the morning and on and off all day long.

  

This has given me the perfect opportunity to get on with making my first boaty Christmas puds, cakes and mince meat. I’ll let the fruit steep in rum over night and cook them tomorrow and jar the mince meat. Earlier in the week John made some raspberry, cherry and mixed fruit vodka, which we are shaking everyday. We just need to peel & pickle the onions I brought last week, may be tomorrow. There’s only about a couple of measures of rum left in
the litre bottle, so best have some with coke this evening.

While we’re close to Heather she’s taking the opportunity to do a good bit of overtime and we are baby sitting the boys. Plus, we’ve been to the McMillan coffee afternoon at Nikita’s school, where we won a huge cake in the raffle. The following morning we attended Nikita’s class’s Remembrance assembly.

I went to the knit ‘n’ natter at the Farmers Arms at Burscough, organised by Carole from the Wool Boat a few weeks ago. I had attended it way back in May and had met most of the girls at the Burscough Wool Festival. I’m trying hard to finish all my half completed knitting projects. So far I’ve managed a shawl which grew amazingly once I blocked it. Lots still to do though.

Heather and the boys (Nikita had a party to go to) helped us up the 7 locks on their Rufford Branch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, when we were heading for Wigan. It’ll be good when Lance can get his life jacket on and help too.

We’ve had some spectacular sun rises and sun sets these last few weeks and the super moon was behind the clouds as it came up at it’s largest. It looked beautiful through the willow tree in front of the boat but didn’t come too well in a photo. Sadly we missed an amazing photo opportunity last week, a kingfisher doing his morning ablutions on a branch oblivious to us chugging by.

Next week we’ll need to head back and go up the Rufford Branch as due to the planned winter stoppages we won’t be able to wind (turn around) beyond Burscough. So that’ll be us on the branch until the stoppages are completed in mid March. It is going to be a very different winter this year, last year we were ‘locked’ in on a 28 mile stretch of the Peak Forest and Macclesfield Canals. We are going to be limited to a 5-6 mile stretch between Tarleton and Rufford, but a short stroll from Tarleton to Heather & Jason’s though.

Cold and frosty morning

November’s certainly here with vengeance, the temperature halved last night and our first frost this morning. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting out beside the boat knitting. We had lots of coal delivered to Heather & Jason’s garage today, then we can have a bit at a time as we don’t have a coal boat like we had last winter on the Macclesfield & Peak Forest Canals.

We are moored in Tarleton just by Heather & Jason’s for this week as it’s half term. Heather’s had the chance to do some overtime the last few weeks so as we’re here we are looking after the kids.

Last Sunday we helped at the 5^th ‘Burscough Fibre Festival’ organised by Carole and Colin of ‘The Wool Boat’. We’ve been to the first three in the car. It’s a tiny event compared to any of the other ones we’ve been to. We were looking after the entries in the Halloween competition, which gave us the opportunity to chat to lots of people. I spun on a drop spindle & John had lots of interest in his knitting loom/block. One of the stall holders was a boater who sells hand spun yarn, dyed yarns and fibre & felting.

We decorated the boat for Halloween with some bright orange bunting, gel window stickers and the ghost & pumpkin light’s Edmund brought us. Plus we had two small pumkins carved on the bow. We got some sweets in as we had the Overells booked in and Nikita had her friend with her. There is a new housing estate right by the mooring, there were people commenting on the boat’s decoration but none knocked.

We’re planning to go to the firework display on Saturday at Southport as we can all squeeze into the car.

Sunday we’re planning a trip with the Overells back down to the main line of the canal.

We have seen the end of the season long celebrations of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal’s bicentenary. We caught the train from Burscough to Wigan on Friday 21^st October to see the flotilla headed by ‘Kennet’ the Liverpool short boat that’s been renovated and converted into a floating museum, it was doing a week long trip along the whole canal. ‘Kennet’ had a huge band of volunteers that were assisting it’s passage down the Wigan flight of 21 locks. The second boat in the procession was our friend ‘Ribble’ the other short boat that we’d helped when it got stuck under a bridge. ‘Ribble’ was looking much higher in the water as it had unloaded it’s 30 tons of sand. We’d taken our windlasses & anti vandal keys with us, so we helped ‘Ribble’ with it’s crew of just 2 down quite a few locks. Then on the Saturday the flotilla came past where we were moored in Burscough. We put up our bunting, pompoms and fairy lights. I made the grandchildern some wavers out of some old material and we blew bubbles and honked the horn as all the boats went by.

 

 Then on the Saturday the flotilla came past where we were moored in Burscough. We put up our bunting, pompoms and fairy lights. I made the grandchildern some wavers out of some old material and we blew bubbles and honked the horn as all the boats went by.