Too full to move at Burscough Wharf

What a wonderful day we had yesterday and it’s a good job we’d not planned to be on the move, as we were overloaded with 8 adults and 3 children. The weather was fine so we could spread out on the boat & towpath too. My sister Louise & nephew Jack dropped by after attending a wedding in Sheffield. Heather & her family were here too, plus Ada & Dale. I zoomed up some cherry scones & did rolls for lunch. The children had more fun than you can imagine making a magic potion in a muddy puddle.

Ada had some holiday to use up so came for a short week break with us and Heather. 

On Mother’s Day Jason drove us to Ingleton Water falls, North Yorkshire. It has got to be the most wonderful walk we’ve ever done. Nikita & Magnus are really good little walkers and loved the just under 5 mile walk, which was pretty steep in places. We took it in turns to carry Lance in the backpack, which is very good exercise. He also loves walking too.

We got up to the main line of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal on 24^th March and have been moored right by Burscough Wharf. The weather’s been atrocious with wind and rain so we stayed on the Rufford Branch longer than planned. It’s SO difficult negotiating the swing bridges over the Moss in the wind, even on a still day. In-fact, the day we headed off I got lashed with hail stones as I steered out of Tarleton while John made me hot chocolate.

Fingers crossed we’ll be able to moor right outside The Farmers Arms for knit & natter this Thursday.

I’ve needed some dental treatment and so it’s so handy mooring right opposite the surgery in Burscough.

There has been a beer festival at The Ship, Latham, a 10 min walk along the canal. We went when it stopped raining Saturday. It was lovely to see some Banks & Taylor beer there, so John texted the boys he used to work with to tell them. It was very busy so we left early.

We are now looking forward to our trip into Salthouse Dock, Liverpool at the end of April. To prepare for our trip into the sea water we’ve ordered some zinc sacrificial anodes to hang off the boat as our freshwater magnesium ones won’t protect the hull from cathodic corrosion.

Last few days on the Rufford Branch.

 

Fearn's swing bridge

Over this winter we’ve continuously cruised a very short stretch, along a 4 mile section of the Rufford Branch of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, it adds up to 44 miles and the same three swing bridges 33 times. During a shorter period last year, from when we moved aboard until mid March we had travelled 151 miles and through 62 locks and 26 swing bridges.

The winter stoppages were lifted 2 days ago, but the wind obviously wants us to stay in Tarleton. The wind has been incredible, huge 30-48 mile/hour gusts, it seems worse then a few weeks ago when storm Doris hit. On a fairly still day the breeze over the moss really catches the boat as we stop to open Fearn’s Swing Bridge, so we’d be pinned to either bank in these winds. Fingers crossed we can make a dash for it this week as I REALLY WANT to be moored outside The Farmers Arms for knitting on Thursday.

 

 

We spent a few days visiting my sister in Dundee and the weather was fairly kind to us. It was a much shorter train journey from Preston than we’ve been used to from Luton. I’ve always wanted to walk over the Tay Bridge, which we did and I got a sun burnt face!!! The foreshore of the River Tay is rocky and craggy on the Fife side compared to the embankment of Dundee. 

 

She works at an agricultural university trust and invited us to attend some presentations by the post grad students. They were doing a ‘Dragon’s Den’ type event where they were putting forward their research proposal bids. We heard six of them speak and only two were about potato roots and aphids. The others were very interesting:- a tool for detecting clostridum strains in soil, making paper from fungus, a Scottish rural study and increasing barley crop yealds. The farm manager from the trust has recently retired and we visited him at his own small holding. It was like being in heaven as the rams are very friendly and wanted to be cuddled. They have 3 pregnant mares, one was 3 weeks over due and delivered a couple of days after we were there. I came away with a carrier bag full of black fleece from their Zwarbles ram and white from the cross bred white ewes. Our last day we spent strolling in the mist and then warm sunshine at Lunan Bay, one of my favourite beaches ever.

 

 

I’ve done a fair bit of knitting over the last few weeks, spun up some of the fleece I got in Scotland and had a ball winding frenzy, winding 24 balls!!!!

John’s second batch of mead was lovely and we actually still have a bottle. We have a kit of elderflower wine fermenting on the side now. I can’t wait to start gathering things for wine making and plan to pick dandelions and nettles as soon as I see some shooting.

The kids got us both Ancestry DNA testing kits for Christmas and after weeks of waiting our results are back, it looks a your ethnic make up. John was contacted by one of his 4^th cousins in California and it turns out her great grand father Clide and John were brought up in the same house in Archway, with a good few years in between them. 

Lance had what Heather & I thought at first glance was chicken pox, so we looked after him while she was at work. However, it turns out the strange chicken pox spots were actually the hand, foot and mouth virus. Luckily it didn’t make him unwell like chicken pox does.

Heather and I went to a gin tasting evening at a new bar at Burscough Wharf, ‘Jack & Gin’. It was an outside event in the court yard under gazebos, luckily the earlier rain had stopped. We got to taste gins from 10 different distilleries. We moored at Rufford so we were able to get the train and Heather had her first sleep over without the rest of the family. She is now getting the bar to save her their empty gin bottles to put her origami flowers in.

We’ve made the most of the 2-3 nice spring days we’ve had. John swept the chimney and touched up the black paint work and I had to put a good bit of elbow grease into polishing the roof vents as they were very tarnished.

Welcoming committee on our return from Scotland

 

 

Nikita came to stay

As it’s half term holidays from school, Nikita came to stay for a few days while we are at Rufford. Tuesday was bright with a brisk wind, which wasn’t quite as strong as over the weekend, so we went for a cruise up to Tarleton, where Nikita met one of her friends while we were pushing the swing bridge. We nipped up to the village while we were there to get some treats. We topped up the water tank at Sparks Bridge where all the CRT work boats were obviously having a day off, in fact, it’s easier mooring against them to get water than the bank, as it’s got huge bolts sticking out.

Monday this week was quite busy, we caught the bus and train to Wigan so John could have his back manipulated by the chiropractor. He put his back out picking up his t-shirt last week!!!! Then back to Burscough on the train to give blood at the mobile centre set up at the Royal British Legion hall. This was a new experience for us as we’ve only ever donated blood at Edgware and Luton which are main centres where John used to give platelets. John now has to donate whole blood, as to be a platelet donor you need to be able to commit to a couple of hours each week at the same main centre. Last September we donated at Leeds which was also regional centre. Then we got the bus back to Rufford for Heather to drop off Nikita.

Last week we went to Liverpool on the train. Mark, the chap that fell in the canal at Wigan, is spending winter in Salthouse Dock. We gave him a knock and went aboard for a cuppa. He invited us to join him at The White Star pub for his weekly sea shanty session. We had ‘scouse’ (we’d call it stew though!!!!!) for lunch and couple of pints at The Baltic Fleet pub. Mark had another surprise visitor that day, Peter one of the Wigan lock keepers that had helped us down the flight had dropped in too. We chatted to a chap that played the uilleann pipes, which is a 7 reeded instrument that’s powered by an elbow bellow. It was an excellent afternoon and evening.

Heather dropped the boys off at the boat mid afternoon while she took Nikita to the dentist last week. I asked Magnus to pick up some toys and he said “I’m too tired”. I suggested he lie on the bed and to our shock he fell asleep and then Lance did too. Heather was amazed when she got back. 

Sunny Saturday in Tarleton

Yesterday was amazingly sunny, warm and still, (storm Doris had hit us a couple of days ago) so we took advantage to spruce up the outside of the boat. We wiped it down, cleaned the windows, polished all the brass inside and out. John rubbed down and touched up some of the blemishes in the dark grey paint work. Plus, I sat on the bow and did some knitting until the sun went behind the new houses. 

Edmund was up for the weekend and Heather, Jason and the kids went to Rydal Water in the Lake District for the day. If we had gone too, they would have had to take both cars.

Today we got up nice and early to stroll up to Heather’s to prepare breakfast. It’s pretty cosy and mad with the 3 kids and 5 adults on the boat. After breakfast we all went to Southport to do 10 pin bowling, before all saying our good-byes to Edmund as he had to catch the 14.30 train.

 We had a small fishing competition by us today and they were just packing up when Heather dropped us back to the boat. We were fascinated to watch the weigh in and the wriggling roaches put back into the canal. The chap behind our boat won with 11lb 10oz total weight of his catch.

 

Heather’s birthday seems a long while ago. Ada & Dale were up for the weekend. As a birthday treat from us Heather & Jason stayed in a hotel on Albert Dock in Liverpool. Ada & Dale joined them but returned to baby sit the children and take them to their child care on Monday.

 

Last week we caught the bus to Preston to do some shopping. We also strolled along the Lancaster Canal from where it starts in Preston to the new Ribble link that was constructed on Savick Brook. The link was opened in 2002 to connect the Lancaster Canal with the main canal network via Tarleton (where we are now), along the River Douglas and River Ribble. Some of the newly constructed locks are on some tight bends which means narrow boats need to enter them backwards. 

Photo by Colin of the Wool Boat

 I enjoyed a lunch last Thursday at The Farmers Arms in Burscough to celebrate the 6^th birthday of the knit and natter there.

We have had two brief encounter with lovely birds. One evening we were walking up the lane to the village and a Tawny owl was flying really low and had to swoop up to miss our heads. This evening a kingfisher was on our bow rope, but of course neither were caught on the camera.

Tomorrow we are heading to Rufford for a couple of weeks. On the way we’ll be stopping at the water point as our water tank’s pretty low after more than 2 weeks.