Peter-Bullfinch

There is a lot of pontoon steel work piled up on the bank plus a couple of floating pontoons presumably to work from moored by a temporary work jetty . A stone work road has been laid down from the nearby lane. Three or four pontoon end piles have already been driven in on the bank edge. Seems very slow progress though. I heard a tale that it was planning consent holding the work up.

The staff also have large battery powered yellow work lights for the front and/or rear of your boat to assist. We always use a plant light, Durite type, at the rear in addition to our headlamp to illuminate the boat roof in relation to the tunnel roof and walls.

I was appalled, even as a young lad in the fifties, watching a boatman chuck the contents of his soil bucket into the cut as we walked to primary school. It must have been ripe because the smell wafted up to us watching from the bridge above. This was Maghull on the Leeds and Liverpool.

Usually live music too on a Monday afternoon. Great value. We go by train so no driving either.

The three wide locks of the Rufford Branch of the Leeds and Liverpool at Lathom have awkward heavy paddle gear with a small heavy footbridge across the top lock. The volunteer lock keepers I meet here regularly come along a couple of days each week and have done for a numbers of years now. They are polite and friendly and a great help. They understand really well how these particular locks operate with boats of different sizes. My point is that they greatly ease the boaters passage up and down this branch with its variety of lock gear including the tiresome handcuff locks and clough paddles. I have been told by a few local boaters they would have moved moorings onto the " top line" if it weren' t for having help with some of the four swing bridges and eight locks in this seven mile branch.

It would seem from the published figures that every man, woman and child in the UK will need to stump up around £75 each every year until 2026 to pay for the new line. I hope after that I will get a few free rail tickets to London as a thank you for my contribution rather than the one third I get off at the moment with my Senior Rail Card.

This one crosses the Trent and Mersey between Middlewich and Northwich twice just àbove the ends of the lovely flash. That's the bad news. The up side is that at least there will be a decent phone signal here then because at the moment it is woeful.

I heard today that the Bridgewater bailiff had been dumped in the cut on a couple of occasions in the past.

We went East to West last summer. Took the cratch down but we didnt have any damage. We kept a reasonable pace going which seems to help the steering. It took us one hour and twenty minutes. We did bump a couple of times but that was only at front gunwhale height. Our chaperone, Paul, was a nice chatty fellow. The whole thing was really well organised I felt. They brought a crate of safety gear with us. We were met at the first ad It and it was just a phone call at the next three brief pauses. I enjoyed the whole thing and it was well worth doing.

That's a proper looking boat. Nice view of the Tyrley locks?

Our e bike occupys a space 850lx450wx700h . Volt with 20 inch wheels. This space would fit two bikes of these dimensions.

We are up and down the Bridgewater regularly and have yet to meet the latest mooring and licence official. We moor in all the usual busy spots, Stockton, Lymn, Castlefield but very rarely have we spent more than seven nights or returned within the 28 days. We did meet the previous officer who was a lovely man and we gave him lifts ( with tea and biscuits) at times because back then he couldn't cycle. The canal is gently busy right now with many delightful mooring spots. Facilities are fair. It's a real pity if anyone feels they have to rush. Its not exciting in terms of locks but its wide and deep. It's a pity when this great navigation is done down. It's clean and well kept. I hope boaters never feel they have to hurry. Support the businesses here and enjoy the scenery and urban parts. Manchester is a great place to spend a night or two.

The cleats are brass and held on with riv nuts drilled into the square section on the roof edge. I try hard to never put these cleats under huge pressure in case they should ever fail. They are there more to keep the lines in the right position.

This is our arrangement using two centre lines and two cleats to help keep them away from the solar panels. For the last three years this has worked fine.....so far.

At the moment Aldi are selling those large format yellow road atlas books for £1.99. Useful to see the canals in context of neighbouring towns. In addition it has all the Aldi locations overprinted!

You'll soon be able to calculate how many litres per hour your boat does. For example some boats use roughly about a litre an hour and so a quick look at the engine hour counter and jotting this down when the tank is full will then enable an easy calculation without dipping the tank so often.

An update on the new Vicars Hall Bridge. The concrete is now being faced in brick and will consequently look a lot smarter. A little further away towards Leigh the East Lancs road bridge is having a lot of work done at the moment with a huge amount of steel work being installed prior to jacking the whole structure up. Lots of boats moored these days in Leigh on the C&RT side of bridge 66 opposite Aldi and the rather fine old warehouse now the Waterside Inn. This is good to see. In addition lots of graffiti has been removed in an around Leigh and it is all looking much better.

This is Pennington Flash near Leigh today. A lovely place to moor just before Plank Lane lift bridge. The new BWML marina at Plank Lane is now about half full. There appear to be a couple of dozen places left still. Maybe they are waiting until the almost completed housing development is finished before the final few are let.

We are in the centre of Wigan tonight. Plenty of otber boats around just below Henhurst lock. Good shopping handy. Loads of other spots along the Leigh Branch of the Bridgewater. Dover Lock, Plank Lane, Astly Bridge, Boothstown, Worsley, Trafford Centre. Handy Aldi in Leigh with mooring just outside. The facilities along this canal are a bit hidden but are reasonably frequent. Fuel etc at Thorne Marine at Stockton Heath and just before Waters Meeting.

Reminds me of the newspaper headline about the madman who ran into a laundrette and ravished the ladies. "Nut Screws Washers and Bolts"

Teapots

Another thread reminded me how important the Irwell was to navigation in Manchester. Hopfully one day the Manchester Bolton and Bury canal will reopen and this area will again see more boats moving to and fro. Near the cathedral and opened in 1839 named after young Queen Victoria this bridge had many rowing boats for hire and pleasure steamers set off for Pomona Gardens. The Victorian music hall " Ben Langs" was here and was the site of a crush in 1868 killing 23 people and injuring many more caused by panic from a fire alarm. Mr. Lang owned the pleasure paddle steamers Punch and Judy which could carry between 100 and 200 each. Cargo boats plied up the river bringing timber to a yard where Exchange Station is. In 1841two vesselsLingard and Mary were towed by the steamer Jack Sharp to demonstrate how the Mersey and Irwell company had recently dredged the river.

Yes, copper grease is good stuff. I also have a little tube of lithium grease which seems to work well too.

We have put this type of slide off hinge on our locker. It does mean that if you ever need to paint the hinge area it's a lot easier to remove the whole lid. Any hinge kept well greased shouldn't rust too badly but it's so easy to forget.

We are a couple, retired now, and we live most of the summer from late March to October on our boat. In our early years we chased around the system often travelling every day. Now, many years later, we travel slowly. Today was I suppose typical. Last night we moored in a beautiful spot looking towards the hills on the Lancashire plain. After breakfast, whilst I sorted out ropes and mooring pins and checked the engine over, my wife wandered off to get the first lock ready. We chatted to a fisherman and the dog walkers passing. The next three locks slipped by and we paused a little to talk to boats coming our way. Two locks were with volunteer keepers which we enjoy. We had met this pair a number of times in the past. We chatted with them about the adjacent disused dry dock and hoped that one day it could be re used. We stopped to fill up with water and then the next bridge was an electric swing bridge. Only three cars held up which is a poor score! I made lunch. I enjoy cooking in our small galley where everything is close at hand. We stopped and got our chairs out in the shade under a small ash tree. We read and did the crossword....its an onerous day so far. The tow path has been busy all day with walkers and cyclists aplenty. Another boater wandered along for a chat. She passed earlier then moored and had been for a walk. We are having a walk soon and will stop for a pint in a pub nearby. We will listen to the radio perhaps later on and whilst we could watch TV we rarely do. No little maintenance jobs today unless you can call mending a boat chair a boating task. Yesterday was full of maintenance. The water pump broke and that was a priority to fix.