A lovely sunny morning which made a nice change. We were up early, which is usual these days, and I popped to the Co-op for some veg. At about 9 we set off for the junction to turn, with Adrian walking to get some photos.
We turned around — and now we’ll soon be properly heading south, it will be the final time we turn here for a while. We went onto the water point, the tank badly needing to be filled after two loads of washing and drying in two days. While we were there we took Macc to some grass for the toilet, but it was quite long and dewy so he returned with a very wet muzzle.
Filling the tank took the best part of an hour, and as we were finishing up a boat which had been in front of us by Bridge 2 reversed back through the bridge to get water. Once he was beyond us I got out of his way; there are two water points, but the one we were on was much easier for him to get to. On the way out of Marple, even Goyt Mill looked quite nice in the sunshine; we only seem to have seen it in gloomy weather up to now.
At the farm a bit further on I saw the first lambs of the year. There were more black ones than white ones, so I wonder whether they accuse ne’er do wells of being the white sheep of the family.
We moored on a now favourite stretch between bridges 7 and 8; it’s often busy along here, but today there was no-one so we had our pick of spaces. We went to the forward end, where the view across the canal is better and where we were also in full sunshine for the solar panels. We are crunching against something under the water, though.
This afternoon I’ve put together most of a podcast episode. Only the end needs more work, because I want to put a preview of the one which will follow it, but I haven’t done any of those recordings yet. Then while Macc and Adrian had a nap I went for a walk, doing loops from a couple of the nearby bridges. There was a great view from the top of the hill opposite us.
I had not long published the blog when we heard the claxon of of the fuel boat, Alton. As we were down to just over half a tank we flagged him down and he pulled along side and filled up. The price was quite high at £1.29 per litre basic (although not the highest we’ve seen) but it’s always good to support the boats.
1 mile, 0 locks. (43 miles, 0 locks)