Bridge 12 to Bonfire Night Mooring, Lea Hall Bridge 22

Warmer today, no need for coats, well until it rained, which we managed to avoid. Tilly was kept in so that after breakfast we’d be able to push off. The view we’d come for was just visible if you stood on the gunnels on tip toe.

Someone else had obviously thought the view was worth a bench over looking it at some point too!

As we rolled back the covers I realised that the boat at the other end of the moorings was familiar, the chap stepping on and off his boat was checking the paintwork. It had to be one of our Pandemic Mooring Buddies from the bottom of Hurleston. As we came along side the sign writing confirmed it was the chap who had designed the yellow bicycle from when the Tour de France went through Hebden Bridge. He spotted us coming and bob out to say hello.

His plans are similar to ours over the remainder of the year so our paths may cross a few more times before summer is up, although I suspect we will be travelling a bit quicker than him. We were able to pass on the information about the Macclesfield Canal that Lee on Halsall had given us, so thumbs up all round. Maybe one day we’ll find out this chaps name. He’d certainly got the best stretch, just off the end of the 48hr mooring and with a gap in the hedge and trees, he had the view!

On we cruised, another short day. We’ll have longer days at some point this summer but for now an hour and a bit is all we need to cover whilst we wait for locks to open.

This stretch is very familiar, the coach house, the stable block now a nice home for someone and the fields of cows which used to wear very bad toupees! Wonder if the Yankee candle shop will open this coming week?

Through the last wooded section our destination for the day came into view. Two boats already pulled up, but we headed for the far end, our usual spot. From this mooring over looking Winsford and the River Weaver we’ve watched fireworks on two Bonfire Nights.

The view at the far end was okay, but the trees at this time of year have leaves, not normally present in November and we weren’t expecting a firework display. The doors were opened and Tilly set forth to see who she could find.

Much to her disturbance she found a herd of milk cows who were very very vocal in the field below. So when we realised that the two boats behind us, in a better position for the summer, were moving off I called Tilly back. Last time we were here we nudged to the very far end when a boat moved off whilst Tilly was out. A very bemused cat sprung out from the sideways trees and wondered why I was on someone else’s boat. But due to the cows today I had no difficulty in calling her home before we moved the outside with her in it.

Right in the centre of the mooring we have views on both sides. To the east the West Coast Main line crosses in view, there are more trains than we expected, but not too many to be annoying.

During the afternoon I went out with Tilly for a little walk and Mick chatted with his friend Chris who has just signed up with a boat builder and hopes to be cruising the network shortly before Crick boat show next year. All very exciting.

This evening we have watched the final part of Noughts and Crosses, we’d saved it to watch in a week and what a week to have chosen to watch it in! It charts the story of Sephy and Callum who fall in love in a dystopian London where the black elite rule the white underclass.

At about 9:30 this evening we could hear fireworks down below in Winsford. How lovely of someone to think of us on our Fireworks mooring, just a shame it wasn’t a touch darker so that we could appreciate them.

0 locks, 2.82 miles, 2 outsides 150ft apart, 1 railway, 1 blowy day, 0 tupees, 39 bicycle locks, 1 snake, 1 bunny, 2 black cats, 142 peas, 1 flash view, 9 firework bangs.

PS. The queue today at Snugbury’s had a wait of 40 minutes and caused mayhem on the A51. The police in the end had to turn people away. Glad I wasn’t there in a cardboard car!