Middlewich comes and goes, a quick repair and on to Church Minshull

Billinge Green Flash to Church Minshull, Trent & Mersey and Shropshire Union Canals, 10.5 miles 6 locks

We pulled the pins fairly early this morning, well on such a fabulous day all I wanted to do was trickle along enjoying what is suppose to be the last day of this little spell of fine weather.

We passed Barry with Narrowboat No 8 at the next flash along from the one we moored at.  We had met Barry a couple of times on the Weaver and stopped to chat.. His other half is in New Zealand visiting family, and he is missing her a lot!

For sure if I had to travel alone for 5 weeks, I would feel much the same with Vic being away.. friends of our friends Geoff and Mags with NB Seyella, who at the moment should be just about on the Grand Union through Teddington Lock as I write, but I will take a look later and see..

Our first lock of the day was Middlewich Big Lock, this place looked a lonely place when we went down, it didn’t look any different on the way up either..

Just this one double lock, the next three on the Trent & Mersey are narrow locks, only one narrowboat can fit in those..

After this there is a sharp right turn straight into the next lock, and No Problem behaved impeccably with lots of gongoozlers (people who like to watch boats on canals) seeing if I could make the power turn.. yep and with applause from Vic I was well made up!

Then on to the junction itself where we would turn right under the bridge to join the Shropshire Union Middlewich Branch of Shropshire Union Canal..

Once again NP did me proud and she spun beautifully on this windless day.  On into Wardle Lock and once again we needed a quick repair to our front fender..

The rubber tyre bit we have to protect the fender came free again and Vic had to use more cable ties to make it stay in place.  Trouble is I like to sit the bow on the front gate especially if we are both working the uphill locks, so it does take some battering.. Wasn’t long ‘till it was done though.

A blazing hot day today, and even Meg was feeling the heat, finding a nice shady spot while we worked through our last lock of the day, Stanthorne Lock..

Some of the lock paddles don’t raise up that far, and sometimes it is difficult to see whether they are open or shut.  I saw a brilliant picture of Curdworth Locks on Paul Balmer's blog of Waterway Routes where the tip of the paddle gear is painted in red.  Now that is one of the better ideas from British Waterways in my view, you can see what I mean here —-> linky Brilliant!   Certainly much better than the idea of putting square bollards at single narrow locks so us boaters can trip over them for sure!

So late this afternoon we found what we reckon to be the most picturesque mooring on the system.. I took this at about 8.30pm tonight.  I can’t think of any other place apart from above the Weaver aqueduct at Audlem, and to be honest this one is better than that..

You can see we have removed No Problem’s windows to give us a really cool boat, and if you look carefully in the picture you can see the hills of Wales in the background.. wonderful place.

I waited tonight for the heat of the day to cool a little before taking the girls for a gentle walk, as you can see it is quite hilly round here and my legs were aching going up the hills.  I thought maybe it was the heat of the day, but we have run out of Glucosamine Sulphate which I take.  It was Derek and Dot of NB Gypsy Rover who told me to give them a try I guess a couple of years ago when I was struggling going up hill they worked really well and I have had no problems since.. Derek and Dot are currently cruising the Trent and Mersey Canal, and have been heros today rescuing a cat from the canal, well done you two!.  Read all about it here —> clicky

Well I won’t get my supply from Simply Supplements for a week.. hope it doesn’t stop me from walking..