Plan C is to travel south, aiming towards Rugby by mid summer. We might take a detour through some of the Birmingham canals that we’ve not yet cruised but we’re taking full advantage of our new found freedom to decide later.
First we were going to call in to Uplands Marina for an overnight stop. We had completely forgotten to include the side hatch window inserts in the repaint contract, and honestly who would want blue curtains on a green boat. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ As soon as we realised, Nick offered to do them whilst we cruised up to Lymm.
Plus we still had some electricity left on the meter so we might as well charge up the batteries, especially as we still haven’t replaced the solar panels that were removed before our repaint. Not having our full solar capacity was most frustrating when we were enjoying a mini heatwave.
Leaving the lovely spring greens behind
we travelled through the 2000 year old salt mines and brine pits of Eastern Northwich, past the Victorian Lion Salt works, which is now a fascinating museum and well worth a visit.
Through the modern day chemical processing plant currently run by Tata
Onto Middlewich, where we moored against a perfect painting edge for Eric to touch up the blacking
Whist I kept a eye on the wildlife
Or were they keeping an eye on me?
We anticipated they’d be quite tricky to get onto due to the river flow and the short angled pontoons. The easy solution would have been to go in bow first but you cant use the pub if you cant get off your boat easily, so that would defeat ths object. 
Eric’s helmsmanship was well and truly tested, they don’t do reversing around a corner whilst going upstream in boat school. Thank goodness we’d chosen to arrive in the morning before the gongoozelers were watching, it took 2 attempts but we made it. 
I made sure he was well rewarded and we fulfilled our “patrons duty” with several pints and a good sunday lunch.
And before the anticipated weather change, I got to finish the shawl I was knitting and took advantage of the sunshine to wash and dry it flat on the roof.
We steamed ahead towards the castle and in our excitement forgot to read the map, I mean what could be so hard to navigate, under the bridge and moor up on the right….
Oops, when you have an 8 foot radio mast, it pays to to go through the middle arch with enough headroom. Luckily I don’t think the damage to the bridge was severe enough to stop the traffic. And it really was only the tip of the ariel that scuffed the already flakey brickwork. 
Much relieved we moored up at Farndon and I went for a walk. One of the last remaining working 
I had always assumed birds like this had been attacked and injured, and in many ways they have. But not by another wild animal. Angel Wing is a malformation that causes one of the wing joints to grow twisted outwards instead of lying flat against the birds back. It is caused by poor diet, namely a diet too high in carbohydrates, ie Bread, the bread that we love to feed to the ducks. So I guess it’s a bird equivalent to rickets. Ducks and swans are susceptible though geese are the worst affected and as you’d expect, it’s most common in parks and accessible beauty spots where families tend to go to “feed the ducks.”
It’s a tough one to combat because it’s hard to resist feeding the ‘ducks’ when they appeal so much. I’m not entirely sure but I think these geese might have a mild case but I’m not an expert. CRT suggest you use porridge oats or veg like peas and sweet corn
or buy a floating wildfowl food which is what I keep on the boat.
These swans certainly enjoy it. 
Although they still like to search the bottom for the real treats.