N.B.Shiralee: Shiralee Cruise 2012 # 24

Red Bull Aqueduct to Wheelock

Friday 7th September

I forgot to mention just how fortunate we were yesterday whilst towing Martin and Ann, not once did we meet another boat coming the other way through a bridge. Had we done so we could have had a problem, either stopping to allow the other boat through, or charging ahead, making the other boater stop for us. This is not an unusual occurrence and usually sorts itself out, but, with a boat in tow it’s different gether altomatter!

Well, as I mentioned in Blog 23, Alan and Chris turned up at about 12.30 but, alas, as they were short of time we were unable to celebrate the sixth year of living on ‘Shiralee’. But, no matter, Sheila and I will do the necessary at the pub in Rode Heath on Sunday.

Living on a narrowboat does present certain difficulties, but these are pretty minor when compared to the sheer joy of being able to move around in complete freedom from interference by the usual jobsworths and uppity officials of one stripe or another. Apart from the sensible restrictions as to the amount of time allowed at designated moorings, we don’t see many other signs saying ‘No…’, or ‘Do Not….’, as you do in every town, village and city throughout the U.K, except perhaps ‘No Fishing’, but this is for safety reasons, all to do with overhead power lines. Indeed, the restrictions on mooring times are a necessary evil to prevent some boaters overstaying their welcome and preventing visitors from stopping.

As for difficulties, well, one of those would be storage, which we never seem to have enough of. As a consequence we do have rather a lot of stuff strewn about in different places. For example, from my viewpoint as I sit here pecking at this keyboard, I can see an RAC torch, a container of mixed nuts, a box of eggs, two boxed of sweeties, three mobile phone chargers, a stack of pens and pencils and a pair of binoculars.

There’s also a pair of spanners that I keep handy for work on the Universal Joint down in the bowels of the engine bay, a full length tape measure, my empty teacup and a cafeterre. The list is endless, and I’m only facing forward, there’s plenty more behind me. It’s all stuff that we can’t do without but have no room for elsewhere. Which reminds me, I must get down to designing and constructing a new shelf for the top of our main galley cupboard, the top of which is a total mess.

As for today, well, once we have topped up with water at the BW point at Kidsgrove, we’ll be moving along by another three locks to a nice, open space on the T&M, where we will stay the night. Then, on Saturday morning we’ll head off to Rode Heath, where the aforementioned celebration will take place.

Saturday 8th September

Yesterday was one of those easy cruising days, with just a mile and six locks to do, although, that mile took us a wee bit longer than expected, because, upon arrival at the BW/CRT water point and rubbish disposal unit, we were unable to open the door to the cassette emptying room. It didn’t matter which way I turned the key, the lock would not open. Fortunately there was somebody in the office and she called one of the workmen who, in his turn said, after trying the door himself, “Sorry mate, can’t help you there, we’ll have to put it ‘out of order’”

“What?” said I, “we have two cassettes to empty, we can’t leave it until the next place, can’t you jimmy the door with a crowbar, or something? I’ve got a nice, big screwdriver you can use.”

“Hold your horses”, he said, “jimmy it open! Then, pointing his finger at me and wagging it, with a supercilious grin on his face, “Don’t you worry now, I’ll soon have you sorted”.

Within a couple of minutes he had spoken to another workman and I was told to load the cassettes onto his van, after which he whisked me off to a nearby depot where I did the business. Of course, by the time I got back to the boat a notice had been put on the door saying ‘Out of Order’.

They will have to jimmy the door anyway, in order to change the lock, won’t they?

So, as a result of that delay, that mile took us two hours and we eventually moored below lock 46 or, if you prefer, Church Lawton.

Once we had settled in I decided to experiment with my pastels, on a clean piece of paper, to see if I could get the sky colours right. After dividing the sheet into three and mixing different pastels, I think I now have a reasonable facsimile of a blue sky with clouds. Today I will actually apply my experiment to the real thing. Fingers crossed, I really can’t believe how difficult skies can be. In fact there are several book on that subject alone, so I suppose it’s always been considered tricky.

Derwent, the manufacturers of pastel pencils, have a complete range of 72 colours, of which I have now downloaded a colour chart. Goodness knows how much they cost, but they certainly won’t be cheap. I have a box of just 12, which I bought in Northwich and that is only a basic selection. However, when we get to Middlewich we will catch the bus into Northwich and check out the art shop there. Meanwhile, I’ll see how much they are online.

Monday 10th September

Yep, I forgot Sunday but, since nothing much happened out of the ordinary on Saturday, that’s no great loss. All we did was to cruise down from Church Lawton to our present position at Rode Heath, a distance of one mile, with six locks along the way.

Although, having said it was ‘no great loss’, we did encounter a few morons at one set of locks. Along this stretch of the T&M there are several sets of two locks side by side, a time saving device from long ago. Even so, the rules still apply, one boat goes up and, if a boat is coming down, you wait for it. What you don’t do is empty the lock and come up. All this succeeds in doing is drain the pound above and, when you get there with your boat, clutter up the pound with too many boats, all getting in each other’s way, which is precisely what happened. Like I said, morons, in such a hurry that they can’t be bothered with other boaters.

Not to worry though, it was a fine day and we weren’t in a rush. However, there’s also the question of the ratchets on the paddle gear. These should always be closed over when finished dropping the paddles because, if they are not, and the next user doesn’t notice then, when he comes to opening that paddle, it could drop if his hand slips, with the result of a broken wrist, or worse when the windlass is thrown back at the user. And those morons were at those locks too.

I do hope that makes sense. It’s a bit like using a starter handle on an old car, as anybody of my age will tell you. When one of those things came back at you, you knew all about it and took greater care the next time.

So, Sunday, and not much happened there, either. We took a walk in the morning to find the elusive Royal Oak pub, and we found it after about half a mile along the main road. It looked nice enough and so we paid it a visit at lunchtime. By my calculations, what with walking Rusty later in the day, when she insisted on walking around the heath, I must have covered a good two miles.

The Royal Oak pub is a very pleasant, as we would expect, knowing that Alan and Chris have been there and recommended it to us. The pub has two bars, commonly known as Public and Lounge, with a pool table at one end of the Public and a TV at the other. Whilst the Lounge is laid with eating irons on a Sunday, so they obviously cater for the affluent members of society. We, as is our habit, settled for a couple of drinks, a packet of crisps and a packet of Mini Cheddars, as is our wont. Next time through here, as I am prone to saying at many other places, we’ll try a meal there. But, if we have a meal at all the pubs I’ve suggested, we would be looking at bankruptcy.

Anyway, a pretty good weekend was had by all, which is just as well, because it is now raining and we’ve used up our 48 hours, so we must make tracks for Hassel Green. That too is only a short distance away with a few locks, but we do have a big brolly.

Tuesday 11th September

No problems yesterday regarding our trip to Hassel Green, with only two miles and four locks and with a fairly fine day, we were pretty pleased about that. On top of which, there was plenty of room to moor up when we arrived.

When we see a boat approaching, from whichever direction, we always check it as it passes, just in case it’s somebody we know. Yesterday evening along came a boat that neither of us were familiar with but, as I looked up from the name of the boat, to the stern, whose face did I see but Andy’s, our mechanic from Mercia. We’ve been in contact over the time we’ve been cruising, but we hadn’t expected them to come this way. Sandy, that’s Andy’s wife, must have walked right by us without recognising our boat because, had she noticed, I’m sure she would have given us a shout. As it was, she was walking from the Hassel Green lock to the next one along, which is quite a distance. No doubt they’ll give us a bell some time.

This morning I received an email, supposedly from Paypal, telling me I had paid £5.95 to Facebook (Ireland). Now, I’m pretty sure the basic membership to Facebook is free, and I certainly don’t recall giving them permission to raid my Paypal account willy nilly, so I’ve forwarded it to Paypal as a ‘spoof’ email.

As for my pastels, well, this latest landscape project has hit a stumbling block. I was about to start on the tree line yesterday, when I noticed that I had actually laid the picture out the wrong way round. This would not have been too much of a problem, but I had also ‘flipped’ the picture of the caravan, which holds centre stage so to speak and, to make matters worse, I had sketched the outline in charcoal, which is a devil of a job to remove. So, I am now back to square one and having to start all over again. Still, it’s good experience

Wednesday 12th September

We moved along yesterday, only another two miles and 10 locks, to Wheelock. Thankfully the weather stayed dry, well, almost to the end when we were treated to a light shower. Once we had secured our moorings and popped into the village for a paper, chilling out was the order of the day. We did consider taking the bus into Middlewich but, assuming this weather holds, we’ll be there tomorrow anyway and will be able to take the bus to Northwich from there. I still need a few bits and pieces for my pastel painting, and Northwich has an art supplies shop.

This morning I got stuck in to some more of my landscape project, adding in some of the trees and a faint outline of the caravan. This part, I’m pleased to announce, went much better than the sky but, this is only a tutorial about technique. It’s not about getting it right, and so, having also repainted the sky, I’m not too distressed about it not looking very good.