Brrrrr......a chilly start again.

Tuesday 16^th February:

Another cold night and morning, the canal was frozen not too thick probably 8-10mm but enough to make the decision on staying put easy.

That be frozen.

A boat passed by about 10am and the noise inside my boat was quite loud, I dread to think what real thick ice would sound like.

I decided to have a walk around the town, and so once it had warmed up a bit I set off to find Tesco first and bought some provisions, after taking that back to the boat I had a wander, I have to be honest and say there was very little that I found appealing, the actual canal junction is nice and there is another huge Church and quite a few pubs and shops but generally the town looked in need of a makeover, lots of development sites that look to have been empty for some time and ‘The Narrowboat’ pub in the town appeared to be closed down, it all looked a bit run down.

Just three pictures.

The High Street

On the way back to the boat I stopped in the Chandlers and bought a new chimney for next winter, the current one is rusting away and I think it will fall apart when I take it down, some door rope, glue and blacking for the stove, it needs to be cheered up a bit.

Yesterday was wet, all day just continuous miserable rain, I stayed put again.

Today I set off at 10:30, I have 31 locks over the next 13 miles, most of which are on the section known to boaters as Heartbreak Hill, no doubt I’ll find out why when I get started on that.

After going through Wardle Lock the last of the locks (or first) on the Middlewich branch I needed to do a sharp turn right onto the Trent and Mersey canal and as it was a blind exit for me I gave a long blast on the horn not expecting anything to be there, but there was a boat just about to turn in, he managed to quickly reverse out of my way, and said ‘that got my attention’, well that was what it was meant to do so I was glad I did it.

Into Kings Lock with the pub of the same name alongside

The Canal at this point is very wide a strange feeling after the narrows of the last few months.

The Pub opposite Rumps lock looks like being turned into a private residence.

The A533 runs alongside the canal and it does nothing to enhance your passage, it's noisy and on the right to begin with then crossing the canal to be on your left, it’s not until you get to the third of the Booth Lane locks that you leave the road behind and find a more rural curving landscape but there is a lot of housing being built, the cruise was ok, the weather was kind, but not the most picturesque of landscapes.