Cat – Narrowboat Firecrest

The past 2 months have been somewhat frustrating. Having the culvert collapse somewhere around Scholar’s Green just a few days before we about to cruise past, somewhat put a halt to our plans. Instead of spending the New Year in Stone, we were stuck on the Macc and our first cruise of 2024 was made heading north not south as planned.

Heading out of Bollington, past Clarence Mill,

New Year’s day 2024, going north past Clarence Mill

Stopping for fuel at Baileys trading post,

And whilst Eric tried to stiffle his cat allergy sneezes, our new friend tried to work out how to get off Firecrest to return to their own ship

Not knowing how long the breach was going to take to repair we settled down to await the delivery of more updates from CRT

Hearing that the next update wouldn’t be until end of January, we packed up and went home to see the family for a belated Christmas

We had to cut short our visit home because the forecast changed drastically and temperatures plummeted,

And the next day the snow arrived

One of the good things about a big freeze, is that Ice makes for some fascinating patterns

And the ground is solid so going for walks is a treat, not a muddy quagmire.

We thawed out eventually and made it up to Marple

Looking towards the junction onto the Peak Forest

We were getting quite annoyed now, updates from CRT telling us what they were doing to fix the breach, but nothing about how long they expected the work to take. Should we turn around here or go onto the Peak forest Canal. We emailed CRT and got quite an apologetic reply acknowledging their oversight in not giving a predicted completion – it should be done by END of March… oh my goodness, that would be over 3 months to fill the hole. At least we could pace our meanderings, Whaley Bridge, here we come.

Looking back towards New Mills from Furness Vale

Through the lifts bridges

Past the swizzles factory,

We walked from Furness Vale back into New Mills, admiring the amazing skill of the people who built the bridges

and finally we cruised into Bugsworth Basin

One of our favourite destinations, Bugsworth Basin.

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.