Sunday, February 14, 2010

Happy St Valentines Day!

I hope you all got at least one card. For those who didn’t, lets have a big Aaaah. I’ve just thought, that includes me…. Here's one for us, then.
Valentine kiss
Having spent a couple of days in sunny Nantwich, picked up the mail and done a bit of shopping, it was time to move on.

By the time I’d had my run (a long one on Sunday mornings), had breakfast and taken her ladyship for a walk, it was getting on for midday before we were ready to get off. They’ve been a few more boats about this weekend, of course it’s half-term, isn’t it. Seen a few hire boats out of Middlewich and Bunbury.

Over the A534 on the Nantwich aqueduct.
It’s been fairly mild today, after the early mist cleared. We had a touch of ice on the water in sheltered places, but that soon melted. We didn’t go far, just a matter of getting out into the country for a couple of days, so we toddled on down to Hack Green and moored just below the locks.

Typical Shropshire Union Canal.

Moored at Hack Green
There are more moorings at the top of the 2 locks, and a little further on at Coole Pilate, but there didn’t seem to be much point in going up the locks just to come back down again. Getting lazy, ain’t we! No, just saving ourselves for later in the year…

Following claims that boaters are avoiding Skipton for fear of vandalism, the Craven Herald carries a story telling us it’s not that bad. “No further trouble for the last couple of weeks.” Hmm, that would be during one of the coldest spells of the last few years, when the kids were at school anyway. Like I already said, it’s half-term, now.

Alf, regarding your comment on stern gland packing on the last post. For advice I went to Tony Brookes excellent website, where he gives a step by step method of repacking the gland (including a dead easy way of getting the old stuff out!). I suspect that a lot of folk put a new ring of packing on top of the old simply because of the difficulty of removing it.

Locks 0, miles 2¾

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