Narrowboat Firecrest – Page 9 – Coddiwompling with Narrowboat Firecrest

Time to turn the heating on

We turned onto the Macclesfield Canal during the last week of October. Apart from a few chilly mornings, the sunshine had provided enough heat to keep the boat warm, and an extra hour under the duvet had kept us warm up until now.

Autumn at Stanier Bridge 62, on a warm day

Although the boiler drinks more diesel than Eric drinks beer, it’s not economy that fuels our reluctance to enjoy a hot radiator, but a stubborn streak of perverseness that eggs us on to hold off for as long as possible. Not to mention the wardrobe full of handknits to wear. Mooring up at Ramsdell Hall, we thought we were going to make it to the beginning of November

Rowndes Bridge 86 (ramsdell VM) Tuesday evening

But the following morning, enough was enough, we both agreed the time had come.

I’d been invited to attend a concert in Liverpool so we needed to reach the train station at Macclesfield. So despite the fog, we pushed on to do the Bosley flight before the rain started. No volunteers to help at this time of year, but we still managed all 12 locks in under 2 hours

We were unlucky with the mooring in Macclesfield, as most had been taken, and the visitor pontoon has a 2 day restriction all year round. We would have liked to have stayed longer but we had just enough time for us to visit the monthly treacle market – which in my opinion is one of the best street markets in the country with a combination of nearly 200 artisan foods, art and handicraft stalls. And then I caught the train to Liverpool.

Our “plan A” had been to overwinter in Salthouse Dock, , so we could be close to family and all the fun and culture Liverpool has to offer. But alas it wasn’t to be, we’ll enjoy the greater freedom of cruising more – and I can spend our mooring fees on train fares. Aunty lives near the Formby coast which is great for sunsets

Even better when you have a cousin to share it with

We all went to the Phil to hear Vikingur Ólafsson to play the Bach Goldberg Variations.

If only I were allowed to post an audio of the concert, it was magical

After my frivolities it was time to settle down to some hard work Our son was having to move house, don’t get me started on the relationship between landlords and tenants, we’ve experienced good and bad from both sides. Nowadays young people don’t have that magic box automatically ticked on their drivers licence that allows them to drive a van, which meant we were called upon to hire the van … and put in the man power to help with the heavy lifting. It’s a bit ironic that for “Plan B” we’d chosen to cruise up the Macclesfield canal so we could spend some time with him, but hopefully he’s settling in to his new abode now even if it’s nowhere near a canal now.

At least for us living on a boat means we’re well used to moving our home. We found ourselves mooring back where Firecrest was built, near Braidbar Boats, nice to pop in and say hello to some good friends. As well as enjoying the expanse of the wides.

Braidbar wides, (probably not the official name)

We seem to be spending more time off the boat than on it this month, and we topped it off by celebrating a 90th birthday in the Lake District but the old dog likes his privacy so here’s the young one enjoying the festivities.

And we got to spend a week at “home” (where the central heating is on all year round and we get too hot)

Mooving from the Middlewich to the Macclesfield

Time to set off up Heartbreak Hill and give the old lock muscles a workout. But before the aches set in we decided to take a detour on foot, to explore the lovely little market town of Sandbach. It’s a familiar name on the M6 junction signs, but we had never taken the time to visit it before, and I’m glad we did. It has lots of character, independant shops and some real medieval history, I have a feeling we will come here again. (If only to visit the Cafe on the Square for another Handmade sausage roll)

Fortified, we set off under bridge 152 at Wheelock bottom lock to tackle the 6 miles with 26 locks.

But unlike the hire boaters who do the whole flight twice in one week, we stopped off at the top of the Wheelock stretch

Waking to a fabulous sunrise, we set off nice and early, just cause it felt so good to be out in the fresh air and sunshine.

Red sky in the morning, sheperds warning

But whilst we were enjoying the sunshine and just a few flooded fields,

At least the canal hasn’t burst its banks here

our family in Suffolk were half a mile away from the devistation left by Storm Babet, luckily high enough up the hill not to be in need of their own boat.

The River Deben, the nearby houses were badly flooded (photo swiped from internet)

And whilst the country was still reeling from the mindless act of vandalism that destroyed Sycamore Gap, we’ve been enjoying some beautiful trees on our route.

From setting off at sunrise we were moored up at Church Lawton for sunset

With only 5 locks left to complete the flight we took it easy on day three, stopping for water at Red Bull before flying ove the aqueduct at Hardings Wood Junction, where the Macclesfield canal crosses over the Trent and Mersey Canal

Hello Macclesfield Canal,

Hall Green stop lock on the Macclesfield

Hampered or Enhanced

In the true spirit of Britishness, the weather continues to dominate our cruising plans, yet no matter how carefully we study various forecasts nothing beats looking out the portholes for accuracy. The bad days have been so awful we’ve battoned down the hatches and stayed snug inside. With no photos to prove it, yet the good days have seen blue skies and dramatic clouds that have done nothing but enhance our love of this out door lifestyle.

We were to spend the next week travelling down the 10 miles of the Middlewich branch,

Autumn hadn’t quite arrived when we were here mid October, and the garden at Minshall Lock still held some jewels.

Stanthorne Visitor Moorings were a nice place to stay for a few days

And our local family came to say hello

5 minutes after they’d left the view changed dramatically and the heavens opened

Whilst we were moored at Stanthorne we were puzzled by what looked like a stationary boat approaching the bridge. Curiosity got the better of us, two boats had had their mooring pins torn out and were floating free in the middle of the channel. We were able to do our good deed for the day by asking a passing boater to nudge them close enough to the bank for us to get on, and rescue the ropes which thankfully still had the pins attached. The ground is so soft with all the rain it’s hardly surprising the pins didn’t hold.

The moral of this has to be. If you can’t moor on rings or armco, use a cross pin to brace the rope holding pin, use a springing line to help hold the boat still, and always thread your rope through the pin ring and most importantly SLOW DOWN past moored boats, infact throttle down before you reach the moored boat so that you are actually going slowly when you pass them. Apologies for getting on my high horse there, but it really does matter.

And back onto the Trent and Mersy at King’s Lock Middlewich

6 weeks on the Shroppie

The Shropshire Union Canal is definitely one of the prettiest, although the double locks are heavy going, but it’s worth it to get to Chester.

Chester is one of our favourite cities and we were lucky to get moored at King Charles Garden, under the wall. ( that’s Charles I, we’re still waiting for an invitation to moor in our current King Charles garden)

It’s so close to the cathedral that I managed to almost managed to fit in a whole years worth of soul refreshment into one week

And we still had plenty of time to explore the city as well,

Of course it became a daily challenge to walk the wall

Looking up to the wall to Eastgate clock

Thankfully we had left Chester before storm Babet arrived and flooded all the rivers. The river Dee still looked a lovely place to stroll along outside the wall.

We took advantage of being able to stay 14 days in Chester before we turned round to head south, like the Airbus dolphin that flies to Toulouse everyday delivering parts from its Cheshire manufacturing plant and headquarters.

One of the Airbus dolphins flying above us

Lots of idyllic rural mooring

Although we knew we’d be cruising straight into that sun after breakfast and we wouldn’t be able to see a thing.

We stopped at the Shady just in time to avoid a torrential down pour, and took advantage of eating out, although it was a nice meal, neither of us thought it justified the price,

Bates Mill Bridge 109, with the Shady pub just the other side

As it didnt entail any more locks, we decided not to turn off onto the Middlewich Branch straight away, but to go on to Nantwich for a few days. And contrary to what we saw in the shop windows Nantwich really isn’t a dead end place

It’s a very interesting historic town, and if all the mooring wasn’t restricted we’d have stayed a whole week,

As usual I made a beeline for the local church St Marys , besides the deep spiritual calm, they are some of the most accessible historic buildings usually full of hidden gems. This time I couldn’t tear myself away from the two hanging embroideries, worked to commemorate both the queen’s silver jubilee and the people of Nanwich.

Nantwich also has a very good cheese shop, several craft brewery’s and a good market. Not to forget also mentioning some nice mooring, although it’s 2 days throughout the entire stretch of the town.

Goodbye British Summer Time

And time to catch up on a long overdue blog post. It’s been a funny old summer, the excitment of my trip to Iceland then the frustrations of navigation closures and broken locks which meant several changes of plans, not to mention the weather and one or two family distractions. I can’t even say we are back on track yet, but hey, that’s boat life for you. The best laid plans have to include course alterations.

So where were we back in July, heading down the Bridgewater, through lovely Lymm, despite glorious sunshine in June it felt like the sun had packed its bags and gone on holiday.

Blue sky would make a perfect jigsaw picture

Not sure what Eric had done to deserve this but it was too good an opportunity to miss.

We left the Bridgewater at Preston Brook,

And onto the Trent and Mersey, we managed to moor up at the the Dutton breach moorings and enjoyed looking down towards the Weaver valley

Which meant of course, the opportunity to explore the Weaver, down the Anderton Boat lift, which we frequently hear is breaking down, and one day those repairs will become economically unviable so we knew we had to take advantage whilst we were passing.

Last time we came onto the Weaver, it was Firecrest that broke down, when our generator decided to throw a wobbly and needed to be craned out for a major repair. (That was September 2020 if you want to look back for details)

Hope we never have to do that again (Sept 2020)

This time it proved to be one of the locks on the River that was out of action, meaning we could only explore downstream towards Runcorn. We found the beautiful rural mooring known as the Devils Garden and settled down to watch the world go by. Having lived on Firecrest for 7 years now, it’s not often that a boat takes us by surprise, but we were quite taken aback when we saw a sea worthy catamaran cruising towards us. How or why we will never know.

And then there was the Historic steam ship the Daniel Adamson. Originally a steam tugboat boat built in 1903 to haul barges from Cheshire and the Potteries to Liverpool, but as transport needs changed so did the Danny’s role,

And she became a pleasure craft for the rich and famous, beautifully fitted out in the best art deco style of the 1930s. Sadly that era was also to come to an end. In 2004 the Danny was in such disrepair that it was due to be scrapped until an enterprising enthusiast negotiated a deal to buy her for £1. And the story is well told on their website We were lucky enough to find a crew on board who let us on for a nose around. And of course we got to see the Dutton Breach from the bottom of the valley,

Looking up to the site of the Dutton Breach

We ended up spending a whole month on the Weaver as we made trips to visit family and had a mini holiday ourselves, when we caught the train for 2 nights in Llandudno to see the sea and to climb the Great Orme and eat fish and chips on the beach,.

And much to Eric’s pleasure we visited the Penderyn Whisky distillery

Eric’s reward for Posing in the stocks at Lymm

Once we were back onto the Trent and Mersey canal we continued onto Middlewich branch and headed off towards Chester for the autumn.

heading photo is looking towards Snowdonia from the Great Orme, llandudno

Back onto the Bridgewater

As we couldn’t trust being able to cruise the full length of Leeds and Liverpool, we’ve opted to meander towards Chester. We’re going to stay in the northwest with the hope that we can cruise east next spring. But watch this space things could change. So for now we’ve booked ourselves 7 nights on the Bridgewater, to unlock the rest of our summer

Its scary seeing the size of lock gates out of the canal

Our RHS tickets were valid until the end of the month so we stopped off for the night outside RHS Bridgewater Garden

Its just over two months since we were last here, and the plants had magically transformed from a mass of purple iris and alliums into a hot bed of oranges and yellows. Hard to say which season I prefer. RHS Bridgewater is very much a 21st century garden where nature has been embraced and encouraged. Several potentially formal herbaceous borders were scattered with wild flowers seeds and the rewards were worthy of Monnet’s painting skills, or perhaps Jackson Pollock could splatter some colour like this.

Our meanderings into the art world took us into the heart of Manchester, as we took a detour and turned left at Stretford for a night moored in Castlefields. We were lucky to be able to meet up with Rito and overwhelmed by the choice of what to do in the city, we opted for the Manchester Art Gallery

You can never quite tell what impact an art gallery is going to make. Some are stuffed with halls and halls of old masters which beyond appreciating the detail and talent of the artist, leave me a bit bored. Manchester hit the nail on the head by mixing up the periods, giving them context, and celebrating local art in all shapes and forms, and really made us stop and wonder

We saw a fair few Lowry’s, but outside I had to pay homage to a hero of mine, Emmeline Pankhurst who came from Manchester, thankyou.

Cruising through Manchester has a bit of a reputation, and it wasn’t certain that we would be able to get a mooring in Castlefields but we were lucky, we found a space and it felt safe enough. Interesting being surrounded by the old and modern buildings, ( although I think the planning board need to consider the aesthetic impact of the high rises)

Castlefields by day evening and early morning

Rito went home to sleep in his own bed overnight, but joined us again as we cruised back out of central Manchester. Past the start (or end) of the Rochdale canal,

Im not sure I fancy going through that lock

And some very impressive arches carrying the transport infrastructure that helped make Manchester the thriving city it is.

Past some impressive street art, and some bad graffiti,

the city of Manchester adopted the image of of the worker bee over 150 years ago because it encompasses the ethic of hard work and a hive of activity

Past the famous football ground,

And back into the “country side”

but that can’t be real countryside, just look at the towpath quality

to Wigan and beyond

Making progress means working through locks again, so out came the tools of my trade as we worked our way into and out of Wigan. The past 3 or 4 months have been a nightmare for anyone trying to cruise through this junction. With restrictions due to water levels and the Wigan flight being closed for several weeks for both a sinkhole and a blown cill. But the end was in sight and passages were up and running again. But after months without water, we got caught in a monsoon and had to halt our progress. We pulled in at the first available mooring outside Wigan Athletic FC. A bit of a mistake, lots of families out walking, one who thought it was acceptable to encourage their kids to climb on to the roof of our boat for a photo opportunity. I wish they’d fallen in when I stuck my head out to yell at them, and why is it that we only think of witty and wise comments after the event, like for instance, “how would you like it if we climbed on the roof of your car, and potentially scratch the paint or break the windscreen wipers” ah well perhaps there won’t be a next time.

we didn’t waste any time the next day moving on through Wigan, past the pier

there are some fabulous old mill buildings in Wigan,

and onto the flashes, we moored up at Scotsmans Flash

the Scotsmans Flash, a wildlife parkland created after the mining industry collapsed

it was close enough for me catch a train to spend the day with my family celebrating Aunties birthday

And with Mum and Mike having driven down from the Lakes, I took the opportunity to go back with then for a few days amongst the mountains

We even found a pretty waterfall, not on quite the grand scale of the ones I saw in Iceland but never or less, it made me smile.

Just as beautiful, just not quite so awesome as the Iceland waterfalls

Almost as much as seeing this reserved parking space

Sadly they had packed up for the day just as we arrived

And as always lots of laughter around

And I was soon back on the flashes ready to continue our journey

Never a dull moment

It’s all go on board the little ship Firecrest, as we cruised on to Burscough. I was just putting the kettle on after we’d moored up, when I saw our first visitor arriving

Turns out this fella, who lives locally, has a liking for passing narrowboats,

Ey’up what’s for tea.

Burscough has some interesting wildlife,

But not all is what it seems, this duck had made her nest in Tesco carpark, right in centre of town.

Burscough is great place to be, cause its got excellent public transport, and i was able to hop on a train to Ormskirk to see Martina and the Ormskirk spinning group. We’re taking every opportunity to spin right now because as every good spinner knows, July is the TdF month, no not Tour de France, but Tour de Fleece, an epic 23 day Spinathon, where we tune in the TV coverage of that little european bike ride, and we take part in daily challenges, endurance spinning, speed spinning, fine spinning or challenging spinning, and if we’re not part of a local spinning community, encouraged on social media by spinners all around the world

I managed to spin 500g of fibre and made approximately 1.5km of yarn.

it’ll be hand-knits for Christmas again folks

I missed a trick and should have entered my spinning into one of the creative categories at the Parbold Village show, our friends Paul and Sharon who are local boaters suggested we all go together, and as village shows go, it was a good one, the funniest competition was for the ugliest house plant.

that would be a lovely photo of Paul and Sharon, if it weren’t for that monstrosity behind them

Although there were some others that made us smile as well

I think I’d fit in quite well in Parbold

After all that excitement, we pushed on for some rural tranquility, there’s a nice stretch just beyond Appley Bridge

Where the sunsets are usually pretty good

And the field next to the towpath is full of blue linseed.

Back to calmer waters and my little boat

Fortunately not all good things must come to an end and it was lovely to see my little boat and Eric again. Eric had cruised out of Liverpool the day after Amanda and I set off on our epic Iceland adventure, so once we picked up the car, she dropped me off back at our little boat.

I think my hand looks like it’s missing a cocktail glass

Eric had had a good 10 days, but was complaining bitterly about how hot it had been so he hadn’t been able to complete any of the chores he had planned to do…..but he had gone to town preparing some fine dining for me, I decided to dress for dinner

Just so I could show off my sparkley toes

And I was treated to a magnificent salad served with a cocktail and a chocolate dessert for afters

I think he had missed me but is in no doubt I’d like to go again. That said we set off to cruise into Lancashire instead. The canal is full of a yellow waterlily -which is all well and good until you meet a boat coming the other way.

Occassionally there are more ornate lilie

They might look, beautiful they they have stems like rubber under the water that wrap around your prop if you’re not careful. But who knows what’s going on underneath, we got to one of favourite mooring spots next to the Halsall Navvie.

We love this guy and all he represents, building the canals back in the late 1700s was hard hard work, and we shall always be grateful to them and the engineers ingenuity for devising our network.

The Journey Home-Iceland part 7

a delivery of flowers from my mum and Mike wishing us a memorable holiday

What a fantastic holiday, Iceland really is a place I’d like to go back to, more things to see and do and more things to see and do again, But Amanda and I had 2 whole days of cruising left to enjoy, and yes I’d quite happily become a continual cruiser on a bigger ship than Firecrest. But what’s to stop me having crispy bacon, pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast every day on Firecrest?

Just because we could…and I didn’t have to make it myself

And I’m not sure I would really want a dining room quite this big

And I discovered the pleasure in having a pedicure, we’ve been back in England 3 weeks now and my toes are still sparkley

We tried to persuade the sommelier to come home with us to keep the fizz flowing

We were supposed to be heading for a game of table tennis but when someone stops you with a glass of fizz you don’t say no

Infact Julius our lovely cocktail waiter told us he could cook and clean and quite fancied coming home with us

Amanda was very tempted to smuggle him out

I’m not sure I smile so much when it rains so much in an English summer

Standing over the great divide, between the American and Eurasian tectonic plates

And it was very disappointing when our whale watching trip got cancelled at the last minute

So disappointing, all dressed up and nowhere to go

But we really did get to see some magnificent sights in Iceland.

The rain didn’t dampen our spirits

Dressing for dinner was fun

And cocktail of the day was a must, although we tried to hold off until 5pm when we had a plate of canapés delivered to our cabin

And nothing beats live music

It’s been hard to pick out the best bits, I think perhaps Goðafoss was my favourite waterfall

The lupins were my favourite flower on the island

lovely Alaska lupins, brought in to help reduce the soil erosion

The sunsets were memorable

And the company was the best,

I wish that Amanda had been able to share this with David as they’d planned back in 2022, but his memory travelled with us and this holiday was dedicated to him, his love of life and his love for Amanda. Thankyou Amanda for letting me share it with you.