We were up and about in good time this morning, as we had a visit from Mark Langley from Waterways World, and needed to have a little tidy up. Mark arrived about 9, and we decided to go out for a little cruise straight away because the weather wasn’t too bad. There was still a bit of a stiff breeze though, so getting out of the marina wasn’t easy. Our space is near the end so there’s no room to swing round, so I ended up reversing up the marina, trying not to be blown over to the far side, and then heading out. It was chilly but pleasant enough.
Mark was on the towpath taking photos, making the most of the bits of blue sky. We turned at the winding hole about half a mile away and headed back. Mark jumped on at a bridge hole and had a go at steering, to see how the boat handled. Even though there wasn’t a great deal of sunshine (and it’s December so the sun is low) around half the power we used while under way came from the solar. Then I did the turn into the tight marina entrance; as I did so, I seemed to pick something up on the prop, and once I was inside and in reverse, a bit piece of plastic floated away. We came into the berth facing forward this time, which means that while the hosepipe will now reach, the power cable has to run along the roof.
We told Mark all about the boat and he took photographs, and then headed up to see Donna and Jam at Braidbar. We had lunch and went out for a walk down Middlewood Way and back via the towpath. On the footpath, there was a team of tree surgeons at work, with one of them knocking a wedge into a tree that needed to come down. We waited to see it fall.
Since we’ve been back, the wind has got up again and there’s been more heavy rain. It looks like a similar story for the next few days too.
1 mile, 0 locks.