Bostock

Today's Canal - Middlewich Branch, Wardle, Trent and Mersey

We were promised a warmer day today but beyond that it depended on whether you see a glass half full or half empty. The forecast gave us both sun and cloud: talk about hedging bets!

As we set off it was sort of sunny but with more than a hint of high level cloud cover.

But before long the optimists were satisfied by brighter skies and warmer sunshine.

After half an hour of level cruising we arrived at Stanthorne Lock, quite deep at and official fall of 3.3m. We had a little bit of a wait as a liveaboard continuous cruising couple arrived shortly before we did.

We discovered from helping this boat through the bottom gates that one has a problem with how the heel post fits into the pot at the bottom. It took three of us to start it moving shut but then it suddenly jumped, almost dropping us into the water! When it came to our turn the boater behind was preoccupied with his phone so it need Mike to stay with Christine lock side. It behaved as before. This meant that Mike now had to climb down the ladder to bring the boat out of the lock. At shallower locks this is often how we operate but this deep it is a bit more of an adventure!

As we came towards Middlewich the moorings became gradually more packed full. From just above Wardle Lock looking back the way we had come there were boats pretty much nose to stern as far as could be seen.

Wardle Lock was a bit more straightforward. we were disappointed to see that the lock cottage is not looking in as fine a fettle as we hoped to see. Its new owners just before the pandemic promised that they were going to make it look special once again but something seems to have happened.

From below the lock to the junction with the Trent and Mersey is only 47m in length, the shortest on the network. After emerging from the junction bridge we turned northwards towards Anderton.

This brought us to the top of the three Middlewich Locks.

A pleasant sculpture/seat shows the name.

Lock 74 has has a problem with the buffer plate for several weeks and a succession of boaters' notices have warned us to keep well away from it especially when descending. A notice on the balance beam also confirmed this. However it seems to have been repaired but perhaps this is only a temporary fix.

Below the three locks is a longer pound to Big Lock, so named because it was built to take wide beam boats. Alas, they cannot go very far as just around the corner is Croxton Aqueduct which was rebuilt to narrow gauge. This pound has been reserved for licensed trading boats ahead of this weekend's festival and already all but one of the spaces is occupied.

However it was good gto see the newly reconstructed foot bridge at the tail of the lock.

Below the lock we filled with water and then a short distance later Mike took our full recycling bag to the official centre. Although we keep to the rules for what to include that apply at home, Mike was a bit disgruntled to be told to separate out plastic bottles into one bin, cans and tins into another and the rest of the plastics and paper went into the general waste skip!

The towpath was intensively moored until after bridge 176, well out of the town.

As we neared Bramble Cutting (where we had hoped to moor for lunch) we could see that it was already fully occupied so we instead moored just before on the towpath side where there are several mooring rings and a reasonable depth of water.

By the time we had finished lunch the weather had turned very heavy, almost complete cloud cover but still rather warm. By the time Mike had finished preparing tonight's lamb casserole so that it could have a long, slow cook in the oven, we felt very languid. As the options for mooring in the timeframe ahead were not great and after much debate and poring over maps, we finally chose to stay put. Mobile is  not great but we should get a satellite signal.