Midsummer Day, and what am I wearing? Walking trousers - tick; fleece - tick; gloves - tick; anorak - tick; scandinavian goat-herder's hat (as Brian calls it) with ear flaps - tick. I wouldn't let him take a photo though. The sun is sunny, but the wind is icy. Just two locks to go through before reaching our objective: Nantwich and a launderette.
Brian holds the boat on a mooring some way short of the main visitor moorings while I walk ahead to check if there is space further up. I phone him - yes, just one - be quick. It takes 15 interminable minutes ( must be a faster walker than I thought!) before he arrives and says : "That's not long enough". Much chastened, I head further along the towpath and under the bridge, to find a "picnic mooring" (actually 24 hrs) and there we stop, the stern about 12 ins from the bank - yes, we're on the Shroppie shelf again. The boat bangs horrendously against the ledge every time we move up and down or another boat goes past, and I'm not sure we can stand it for the rest of the day and night, but Brian rigs up an arrangement with a spare pipe fender that absorbs a good 80% of the impact.
Then, we haul our two huge bags of assorted washing up to Nantwich Marina, where the launderette goes by the name of "The Wash Basin". It is 1.15 and they close at 3, so it will be a close call to get two loads washed and dried. However the lady in charge is very helpful, providing plenty of change and explaining the workings (I haven't used a launderette since I was a student.) We while away some of the time with lunch in the marina cafe - Staffordshire oatcakes with cheese & bacon.
Washing done, we catch up on yesterday's paper and the number of passing boats becomes less and less as everyone gets moored up ready for The Match.
Needing some exercise, we decide to walk into Nantwich to get a Chinese takeaway. It's a lovely evening, and we enjoy the wooden sculptures along the towpath.
(It's a dog, in case you were wondering)
4 miles, 2 locks
Wildlife seen: see above pictures
Monday 25 June
Glorious sunshine. We first head into Nantwich again to get supplies. It's a lovely little town - many old and beautiful buildings, including typical Cheshire black & white. We also indulge in a coffee at a great little cafe called Ginger & Pickles.
Soon we are afloat again, heading first for Barbridge Junction and in particular its water point - notorious for being one of the most awkwardly located and having the slowest tap on the canal system. Someone is already on it and we wait ages before his tank is filled and we can take the space. Then just to help matters, some BW contractors start mowing and strimming the grass around us, so the boat gets covered in cuttings.
Eventually our watering up is done and we make a sharp right into the Middlewich Branch of the Shroppie. We really feel on "home ground" here as this was a journey we made in one direction or another many times when our share boat was based in Cheshire. As it was then always "on the way" to or back from somewhere, I don't think we'd appreciated how beautiful it was. Today, it was just perfect. We stopped at one of our familiar mooring spots (6 inches out from the bank - the Shelf is still with us), had a barbecue, and enjoyed the sunshine and the view over the Weaver valley to Church Minshull late into the evening.
8 miles, 2 locks
Wildlife seen: some exceedingly agressive swans who snatched the bread from my hand and hissed when told there was no more.
Tuesday 26 June
Off in sunshine again - first objective Middlewich, for (a) Tesco and (b) fish & chips from our third favourite chippy. (The first is in Queenstown, NZ and the second The Magpie in Whitby). We moored up in Middlewich and trekked down the road to the Tesco Metro we know (but can't quite love). Shopping done, we see a side street and wonder if it makes a quicker route back to the canal. We've not gone 300 yards when we realise that (a) it does and (b) it contains a much larger Tesco, where we could have bought what we really wanted (such as grapefruit juice instead of settling for ruby breakfast). Curses. At this point it also decides to rain.
I put the shopping away while Brian goes to fetch the fish & chips, which takes some time as there is a long queue. They are excellent and as always in humungous portions (we always forget this). We decide to set off again before the rain gets worse, but should really have allowed more digestion time and I find the remaining 6 locks of the day very hard work.
The first of these we always knew as "Maureen's Lock" after Maureen Shaw, who lived in Wardle Lock Cottage beside the lock and was a boating legend. Born on a narrowboat and spending almost her whole life with working boat people, she would sit outside her cottage and offer advice and wisdom to passing boaters. Occasionally the advice could be quite sharp and it was not unknown for her to take the tiller herself in exasperation! Praise from Maureen for your boat handling skills was praise indeed. She died earlier this year and it was strange to see the cottage without her.
By the time we got through Maureen's and King's Lock, the rain was driving into us and we began to regret leaving our mooring. We decided against going for our original target of Wheelock and instead moored at a spot most familiar to us as the one where we used to moor the share boat on a Friday night before going into the boatyard on Saturday morning. Only this time, we don't have to clean the boat!
Also, as we are now on the Trent & Mersey Canal, we have at last waved goodbye to that infernal shelf.
About 10 minutes after we tied up, the sun came out again, but we are threatened with more rain tomorrow, when we have to tackle "Heartbreak Hill".
9 miles, 7 locks
Wildlife seen: It was Middlewich. 'Nuff said.
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