Nantwich Embankment to Mickley Bridge 84

Boats were on the move early today, everyone of them wanting to stop and fill with water. Jaq called us as a working pair had passed her just as she’d been about to untie and head to the water point herself. If they were going to fill up there was little point in pushing off herself. So we waited for them to come past. They didn’t, but others did who’d been moored in front of us. The tap, not being one of the quickest on the network would take some time to fill everyone’s tanks. I made use of our central heating having been on and had a shower, knowing that we’d be filling up ourselves today.

Whilst we had breakfast Mick kept peaking out of the kitchen window to see if the point was free. There being space for two boats, but only one tap, meant that once one boat had filled and pulled away, the second boat then pulled up nearer the tap and the waiting space was soon filled by another. Boats were coming from all directions and there certainly wasn’t a lull. One pulled in for a pumpout opposite us, so glad we no longer even have to think about such things.  At around 11.30am I called Jaq suggesting that she came and joined in with the waiting boats, it had already been a three hour wait!

By the time more boats had passed, winded, returned Jaq came into sight over the aqueduct. Her timing turned out to be spot on as one boat was just finishing filling their tank and the other had only used the elsan. The service moorings soon became free and NB Valerie could move into pole position. We also pushed off and reversed our way to stake our claim to be next in line and what seemingly turned out to be last. Once NB Valerie’s tank was full there were hugs all round and a final wave goodbye as Jaq headed north and we were to head south. Good luck with the job hunting Jaq.

Making use of the time it would take to fill our tank we had some lunch, used the toilets, the showers were still filthy. Just as our tank started to overflow a van pulled up, the cleaners, just as we were ready for the off!

Crossing the embankment we waved goodbye to Nantwich, we were on the move again. At most bridge holes we’d come across a collection of slabs of ice. Thankfully they would nudge out of the way quite easily leaving our blacking intact.

At Hack Green Bottom Lock a lamb came rushing over to see what was happening bleating it’s little head off. But we can’t have been that interesting as the next time I looked he was running around the field with a gang of friends. Not too much springy bedoyinging going on, maybe they needed to warm up a bit more.

The top lock was just about full and a boat was coming towards me so I topped it up and opened the gate, then signalled back to Mick to leave the gate open on the bottom lock for them. Under the Shhhhhh! Bridge past the Secret Bunker we continued on a bit further to where there were picnic benches and plenty of space for Tilly to play.

Here is good. I have claimed four benches as mine, maybe tomorrow I’ll claim more. There is friendly cover, shallow puddles, sideways trees and a suitable tree to climb which has a very interesting view!

2 locks, 3.83 miles, 2 cards in the post, 1 reverse, 8th, 4 hour wait for water, 1 cleaner, 1 final farewell to Jaq, 4 ice fields, 3rd one placed in the safe, 2 glasses of wine on a Monday, 1 more place to fit into our cruise, 4 benches, 1 happy cat, 2 happy boaters.

Nantwich Embankment

No ice visible today and temperatures were definitely heading in the upward direction. This however brought with it rain, which at least pleased Tilly and meant that her freshly laundered towels got christened with paw prints. The fat ball in the tree was very popular today with visits from Robins, Great Tits and Blue Tits, they did however keep away whilst Tilly was out and about!

Once the rain had passed over we ventured into town to stock back up on fresh veg and fruit. A joint of pork also somehow managed to make it into our trolley for Sunday dinner! Holland and Barrett provided me with some Buckwheat flour so that I can have a go at making some gluten free hot cross buns. Last year I didn’t get round to making any, mostly to do with having a broken ankle and now the highly expensive small amount of buckwheat flour is long past it’s use by date. I just have to sus out a way to balance a baking tray on my proving shelf as the recipe I have needs three lots of proving.

Back at Oleanna I had a go at cooking the shoulder of pork in my cast iron pot on top of the stove. The Great British Chefs website came up with some advice on roasting and getting crackling. Half an hour in the oven on high to get the crackling going, then pop the lid on and turn the oven down for at least two hours, six even better. Translated to stove top boat cooking, I popped it in the oven for the half hour, then after adding a drop or two of wine, had to wrestle with the joint to get the lid on the pot before sitting it on top of the stove for four hours. Our Great British Chefs seem to have been able to retain their crackling despite cooking the joint in a cocotte (cast iron pot to you and me). For us the joint had to come out of the pot and join the roast veg for twenty minutes in the top oven to return it’s crackle. In the end it turned out very tasty and saved having the main oven on for four hours using gas and creating condensation.

Work on my next knitting project (now mark two!) has gone much better, since I bothered to mark out a pattern on paper. Hopefully in a day or two it will be finished.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 walk into town, 2 bags of flour, 1.5kg pork joint,150grams cranberries, 1 apple, 2nd episode, 7 inches knitted, 1 owy ankle, 50 minutes gas 8, 4 hours gas 0, 4 hours free cooking, 1 damp happy cat.

Nantwich Embankment

It’s continued to be cold here in Nantwich, so we have mostly been tucked up inside Oleanna keeping warm. Watching the news and seeing what has been happening around the country makes us feel like we’ve missed all the fun. Huge amounts of snow and snow drifts have missed us, the snow having been deposited before it reached our part of the country. We’ve had a few feeble flutterings of snow and the most that has hung around has been an inch in the shadows.

The wind has been freezing and gusty, but I’m glad we didn’t get the foam (link) that engulfed Foreshore Road in Scarborough. Seeing images of the high waves crashing over the harbour walls and flooding along the seafront (link) along with tales of friends battling their way home from work across Yorkshire have made us feel very lucky to have been where we are, only have a bit of ice to contend with. Boaters up and down the country have been iced in to a greater extent than us. NB Alton, the coal boat on the Macclesfield, has had to postpone their usual fortnightly run as the ice on the Macc was just far too thick at 3 inches for them to break through, so they are delivering by road to keep people going until they can reach them by water again. Even parts of the Llangollen have frozen over.

The ice alongside Oleanna on Friday was well and truly broken up by a hire boat heading back to Norbury Junction. First I knew of it was when huge rumbling noises made me look out of the window to see the large sheet of ice, that had been knocking at our hull all night, zoom past! It was nice when they decided to slow their pace just after they’d passed us! With the ice now broken up that bit more another boat reversed to the water point where they seemed to vanish. Maybe they were sunk by an iceberg? Or reversed into the Nantwich Triangle never to be seen again! Who knows, but they certainly didn’t return in our direction.

With the temperatures starting to rise the likelihood of the cut freezing over again was slim so we decided to treat ourselves to showers on board, the tank was still above three quarters full, so we could risk it. It was nice to be clean again without having had to swill down the showers across the way.

Saturday morning arrived and we woke to the canal seemingly having returned to water. Ice was still congregated by the bridge behind us, but this was far enough away to be safe for Tilly to go out. I’d already come to the same conclusion hours before hand, they were so slow at opening up those doors for me!  Tilly made the most of gaps between woofers running around like a total loon, pouncing on none existent friends, leaping into the air and scurrying up and down the embankment. At least all this activity kept her warm!

Late morning we had a tap on the roof, Jaq from NB Valerie. We had a lovely couple of hours chatting about our cruising lives. This lady smelt quite nice, so I offered my photographic skills to take a picture of them all from my shelf. Came out quite well.

Over the last four years (almost) we have crossed bows with plenty of bloggers, NB Valerie several times. But usually we’ve been on a bit of a mission, heading somewhere, trying to keep up the cruising hours to reach our next destination for someone’s birthday or a booked passage, so we’ve not often had chance to stop and spend time meeting people. So it has been lovely to have some time to start to get to know Jaq. After the weekend, if the weather stays good, our bows will cross again, heading in different directions, maybe not to cross again for sometime, but that is boating life.

Now that we are no longer embedded in ice, Jaq had a tip for our blog. It seems that having had the ‘Embedded’ box ticked in the settings for comments meant that not everyone could comment on the blog, Jaq, Ali and Les (an old BT colleague of Mick’s) having had difficulty recently. The box has now been unticked, so hopefully commenting will now be possible for all.

0 locks, 0 miles, 8 towels and 4 t-towels washed, 1 speeding ice breaking hire boat, 1 vanished boat, 2 bananas and 200gms chocolate, 1 sock, 1 feline knitting failed, 1 pattern drawn up for next attempt, 1 Jaq, 2 squeaky clean boaters, 4 paws on terra firma.

Nantwich Embankment

Every morning we wake up and peek out of the porthole behind our bed to check on the water status. Despite being a bit chilly in bed last night the water was still very fluid around us. It must be that with little tree cover and bright sunshine the last few days that the canal warms up in the sunlight and holds it’s heat. Today however we woke to a snow shower, not very deep but enough to put Tilly off exploring until the sun had melted it.

After a cooked breakfast (photo for Mr Carley’s benefit today), we decided to head into town to top up on food supplies. Fresh things mainly. If the weather forecast for this week is correct we will be in for a few days of not wanting to venture off the boat. We also wanted to equip ourselves with some means of being able to carry water. No containers around town that we could fill and keep to top up the water tank, so we purchased a couple of cheap buckets instead. These at least will be useful for other things in future and will sit inside one another taking up little space. All we needed now was a funnel so as not to loose a drop whilst filling the tank. The chandlers came up trumps.

The diesel pump opposite was busy filling containers for much of the day and a handful of boats moved past bringing with them slushy flat icebergs. The canal was starting to freeze, just not alongside us.

During the afternoon I continued with my sock knitting and Mick debated whether to walk to the service block for a shower or to move the boat. Snow showers had come and gone all day bringing with them strong gusts of wind, not good to reverse in without a bow thruster. But the showers haven’t been cleaned for about a week and the floor in there is ever so muddy! In the end it seemed daft not to top up our water tank if we could move. Mick checked that the water point tap still worked, which it did, then when we had enough hot water on board we both had showers in the late afternoon.

Tilly obliged by being on board so we pushed off and reversed to the water point as the sun was starting to set. As we pulled along side the service block we could see that straight lines had started to form in the canal, very thin ice. Would we be the last boat to move before the canal froze? With the tank and two milk containers full of water (to rinse the yellow water tank out next time) we pushed back over to the moorings and settled down in front of the stove.

The evening got colder and colder outside. A draught across our knees puzzled us for a while until we realised that it was cold air coming in from a mushroom vent directly above us. Nothing much we can do about that as ventilation is very important in a boat. A blanket on our knees may well do the trick though.

0 locks, 0.14 miles, 1 reverse, 7 snow showers, 1 dusting, 1 full water tank, 1 almost sunk bottle of water, 1 freezer full, 1 fridge full, 1 fruit bowl nearly full, 2 buckets, 1 funnel, 1 clean shaven chin, 2 showers, 1 pair of Pip socks complete, 4 years of cones, 1 traffic island!

Nantwich to Nantwich

Tilly had obviously made her point to Lowkey yesterday as she had free run of the towpath between walkers and woofers this morning, it is a busy stretch.

Quite a few boats were on the move, some share boats, others we assume were weekend boaters making the move back to their moorings after breakfast.

On his way back from the service block Mick had spotted a coal boat so had flagged them down. We’ve not come across NB Effingham before, their timing was good for a small top up of coal before NB Halsall comes through next week. If the temperatures plummet as they are forecast to, then even the coal boats may have difficulty moving. Although they do try to deliver by van where they can, little stops them, which is why they are such a valued asset to the system. With a buffer of three bags of Excell on our roof we could relax knowing that we’ll be warm for the next three weeks.

With quite a few boats moving a space on the embankment had shown itself, the end spot within easy reversing distance to the services. Tilly was home, it was time to move! We quickly pushed off, pootled through the bridge and pulled in at the services to top up the tank. Having had the heating on for a while this morning there was hot water, so whilst we filled Oleanna up I had a quick shower on board. By the time I was dressed again Mick was already coiling back up the hose. So as soon as my shoes were on my feet we pushed off and moored up at the end of the embankment moorings, there’s more sky here.

This outside has a few trees. Not easy ones to climb as they have sideways trees growing up them. This is more of a challenge, which I like. From the branches I can look down on the woofers walking by without them knowing where I am. There are also lots of holes for me to stick my arms in and dig through the soft soily mounds. It’s going to be good here. Tilly was out for much of the afternoon, returning for a snooze every now and then, A good outside can be exhausting!

We had a wonder over to the Launderette, suspect we’ll be bringing a large bag of washing over tomorrow so that we can save our water. The rest of the day we enjoyed the bright sunshine heating up Oleanna. I washed off the mud that had built up on the stern and bow and watched steam rising from the gunnels as it dried almost instantaneously.

Maps were put on the table  and we had a cruise planning session for the first half of this year. There are various dates when we want to be in certain places, visitors (yes, you Duncan!), birthdays, cricket, a play, a wedding, a train and appointments. They are all possible and we may not have to go through Worcester too many times either!

My plans for a pot roast chicken this evening were scuppered as the chicken that came with our shopping was far too big for my cast iron pot, so we enjoyed a conventional roast chicken instead.

0 locks, 0.15 miles, 3 bags coal, 1 full water tank, 1.6kg too big, 4 exhausted paws, 1 ivy clad tree slightly worse for Tilly, 3rd sock attempt a good one, 5 months almost planned, 2 made to measure hearth rugs photographed, 1 mooring in pole position but too far for our hoses.