Tuesday 6th November

This morning it was raining so we stayed in bed for a while longer than normal. I'd been aware of dripping noises from the stern gland last night and then had been woken with the bilge pump going for well over a minute and a half even though it was out of the sump. We both have colds which was another good reason to have a lie in. Cereal and then off. We had been thinking of getting to Macclesfield at least before turning round, but with colds and rain outside we decided to wind sooner and go back down Bosley Locks today so that we'd have a couple of days to go down Heartbreak hill and do our chores.

Fleecy waterproofs were order of the day as it was a constant drizzle, the sort that really gets you wet.Up to Royal Oak Swing Bridge, with the key of power I held 3 cars up, and then on to Broadhurst Swing Bridge. Out of all the swing bridges I've done in my canal days this one today is the first one that has beaten me. I've swung bridges that three firemen have had difficulty with on the Leeds Liverpool before! Mick had to lend a hand both to open and close it. Maybe it was because it was wet, maybe it was because the pushy arm beam was very short, but I was defeated. Then we winded and headed back to go through all the pushing and shoving again. At Royal Oak I held up another 2 cars.

At the top of Bosley Locks we filled with water. A boat was coming out of the top lock who said that there were three more boats coming up behind him. Marvellous, no filling locks today. We stopped in the lock to get rid of rubbish and use the shore based facilities. A CART chap was there who said he hoped we had a key as he didn't! There were pictures of the breach at Preston Brook in the window of the service station. CART man said that he'd been there and boy what a mess. He said it looked more like a quarry than a canal!

So down the locks we started with it still raining. At the next lock a Claymoor boat was coming up, the chap said that there were more behind him, so the locks would be set for us. Coming out of that lock there was one boat in the pound and another coming up, below there was yet another. It seemed that there were 5 chaps to 4 boats, each one helping the others through, backing up to locks to help with gates etc, quite efficient and also very handy for us. They are hoping to be back the other side of Preston Brook at base on Friday. They have volunteers to help them down Marple. We worked our way down with it gradually stopping raining. But with each lock there seemed to be more and more water in the pounds. So by the time we got to 11 and 12 the locks were drowning under water. Don't quite know what could have caused this other than the bywashes not being very efficient for the number of boats going through.

At the bottom we turned the bend and decided to moor up for the night on Dane Aqueduct so that we could have a view even if there weren't going to be any fireworks tonight! We had a chat with a chap from a boat that was moored up, there's been very little chatting to people on this trip, unusual. Gradually the cloud has come down and it's spitting again, so no view!

Left over stew and spag bol tonight. Hope they go together!

They did!

6 miles, 12 locks, 4 swing bridges, 5 held up, 2 herons, 1 dead sheep, 1 silly hat, 4 lemsips, 67 sneezes, 2 slices of cake, 2 biscuits,  1 dishwasher, 0 view, 0 fireworks.

Smart gauge at start of day 99!