A damp afternoon

Tescoman arrived on time yesterday, and we spent a happy hour putting everything away. There was a handy mobile burger van on the layby, so I indulged myself in a cholesterol burger for lunch. By then though the showers had started again, so we chose to stay put until today.

Even with the showers over the last 36 hours, the Tuesday night bonfire at the pub was still smouldering as we filled up with water this morning.

One mean bonfire….
Into Lymm for a bit of shopping (the stuff I’d forgotten to put on the Tesco order, WHISKY, for example), and the popular moorings were busy as usual.

Lymm
We waited out one heavy shower, then pushed on at around 12:30. Probably the worst decision I’ve made recently. It didn’t stop raining all afternoon, sometimes light, sometimes heavy, but continuous. I wore my rubber legs for only the second time in the last 3 years! We don’t usually move in the rain…

On the Bridgewater there’s a lot of boats with the hull below the waterline painted rather than blacked.

There’s blue….
Red….
And grey.

I’ve not seen this anywhere else, I wonder why on this canal?

From Lymm the canal runs through Grappenhall, then Stockton Heath. It was here, at London Road Bridge, that it paused on it’s way to Runcorn. Quite a long pause, in fact, from 1771 to 1776.
Wharfs, warehouses and offices were built here, mostly now demolished. The last remnant is leased by Thorn Marine.
This too is under threat. The owner, Peel Holdings (formerly The Manchester Ship Canal Company, before that the Bridgewater Canal Company), want the land for redevelopment. More canalside des-res’s, I guess. Thorn is hanging on by the skin of it’s teeth. There’s an active campaign to keep the boatyard open.

We plodded on, through the wind and rain, and pulled over in the wilds a mile or 2 short of Preston Brook.

Locks 0, miles 12.