Dunham Massey to Lydiate: 47 miles, 8 locks, 7 movable bridges B words (not swear words, just B-beginning words): Bridgewater, Burscough, bridge, baked beans, baby, birthday… To back track: eventually, a day later than planned, Cleddau had reached Dunham Massey, and in lieu of the planned “day off” a couple of hours was spent at the Dunham Massey Estate. It was Sunday, it was dry – and it felt a slightly dangerous place, the grounds packed with families and bikes,...

Middlewich (Trent & Mersey) –  Dunham Massey (Bridgewater Canal): 30¼ miles, 2 locks Any readers of the previous post who got to the end may (or may not!) be awaiting report of a Monkton Moment*.  From the overnight mooring just back from the children’s park in Middlewich Cleddau cruised the few hundred yards / metres to Big Lock. This lock is well-named as it is wide enough for two narrow boats side by side or for a wide beam boat… A...

Red Bull Aqueduct (Kidsgrove) to Middlewich:  14 miles, 34 locks Cleddau and crew left the Macclesfield Canal on Tuesday morning to start their descent down the Trent and Mersey Canal to the Cheshire Plain.  In 7 miles between Hardings Wood Junction and Wheelock  there are 26 locks. Many of them are paired single locks. One lock down and the canal flows underneath the Red Bull / Poole Aqueduct, on which Cleddau had been moored the previous evening. Though several of...

Victoria Pit, Higher Poynton – Red Bull Aqueduct: 23 miles, 13 locks Home for three nights. Mail checked. Admin attended to. Grass cut. Light weight clothes selected… Then it was back to the boat to start the 2019 cruise. The easterly blasts had gone and warm summery temperatures had arrived. There was earnest discussion abut the coal, whether to retain it on board in case of back to winter temperatures or to offload it so as to give more space...

So, after last year’s disruptions (the breach on the canal at Middlewich, the water shortages that closed Bosley locks), it seemed timely  to cruise along all of the Macclesfield Canal from end to end. Once past Victoria Pit Moorings at Higher Poynton it’s about another five miles to the end of the Macc, where it meets the Peak Forest Canal at Marple. Onwards Cleddau cruised then, past many moored boats, past the Man Shed like no other (at Bridge 13),...

So there Cleddau was, at the bottom of Bosley Locks   on a Tuesday morning.     A volunteer lock keeper was hovering at Lock 12, keen that no water should be moved since he had set locks 11 and 12 for a down-coming boat. Pause. Wait. Then action – and all went well for quite a while.The lock keeper disappeared back up the hill, setting locks for this ascending boat. Somewhere between lock 6   and lock 5 there was a lengthy...

Onwards along and – up – the Trent and Mersey Canal. The four Meaford locks to the north of Stone are close together and a joy to work. It was a Saturday morning and the cycling tribes were all out and on their bikes. One tribe is Local Lads, always male, sometimes young teenagers, sometimes chaps who are friends. You don’t see cycling helmets being worn by them. Then there are the Families, young riders being urged to keep up...

With Cleddau’s winter mooring period at Aston Marina coming to an end the exit had to be planned. First, what to do about the car…? With permission granted to leave it up at Victoria Pit in north Cheshire there was the business to arrange of getting the crew back to south Staffordshire. Cheshire Mum came up with a solution. “One of us can drive you back on Saturday afternoon – it’s Open Morning at Macc Music Centre before that if...

Memories of early schooldays are at best patchy, perhaps disjointed. They do not necessarily follow a chronological sequence but surface, inspired by a chance remark or image, before melting back into a blurry past… From primary school days there are recollections of singing Morning has broken down in ‘The Hut’, led by the headmaster, snowy-haired and kindly Mr Jones, and of playground grit embedded in cut knees and of boys who were loud and cheeky to the teacher…  Lessons were...

There was a day trip to London – the Cheshire One on half-term break wanted to see Cleopatra’s Needle. So, research done, it was decided to take a train to Blackfriars and from there to walk along the Embankment. What a glorious setting is Blackfriars Station:  it’s perched midway across the Blackfriars Railway Bridge, right above the Thames. Gasp. Below – a couple of craft were moving on the river     and the mind was cast back to Cleddau’s own...