Wednesday 7th November

We both definitely have colds now so a lie in was in order again. Then purely for medicinal purposes we had a full cooked breakfast, well we did also need to eat up the sausage mountain we'd bought! Then it was a slow pootle back to Kidsgrove to do some shopping. Helicopters seem to always follow us when we are out, this morning we had one flying very low around a farm on the hillside opposite. Maybe they would attack us when we turned our backs!

Near Bridge 70 we kept our eyes peeled incase we would get to see the Kingfisher again, but he was definitely camera shy today and didn't put in an appearance. I then left Mick to the steering and came inside to the warm for a little bit of a snooze. About half an hour later I was rudely awoken by the boat going into reverse, so my assistance might be required. No! We were going through Congelton where there are lots of bridges and coming from the other way was a coal boat, who with a deep draught was going very slowly. We waited for him to come through which took some time and then carried on. Looking back up the cut it looked like he was now trying to reverse back through the bridges!?

We pulled up at Heritage Boats for some more coal and a back up water cap key. There was already a chap moored up, buying coal, emptying his elsan etc, we asked if we could pull along side and he grumpily said "Well as you're there you might as well". Heyho, emptying your elsan must be quite depressing. Coal, kindling and a new key bought we headed off again, leaving grumpy to it.

The stop lock had to be filled and then we had to wait for what seemed an age for a foot of water to empty. Reaching Red Bull Aqueduct there was space to moor up in front of a chap who was blasting out music, So we went as far as we could away from him for a bit of peace and quiet. Mick went off to do some shopping for our last few days and to stock up on Lemsips.




The chicken left from Sunday was stripped and made a very nice curry.

9 miles, 1 lock, 1 helicopter, 1 heron, 0 kingfisher, 1 revearsing coal boat, 1 bag of coal, 1 grumpy man, 1 re-elected American President.

Smart gauge at start of day 93