Since the previous post (which only got us
as far as Bollington on Monday) we have had a big walk up the Mow Cop – the
highest hill around these parts. I think the Northern Walkway in Wellington would
give it a run for its money, but even so for two unfit oldies it required a
number of stops for breathing regulation. Of course the 9 year old scampered in
his usual way … It was a lovely walk through woods, across a meadow (already
quite high up), through more woods (muddy) and then through the paddock with
young cattle in (very curious but I thought if I ignored them they might turn
away before approaching too close). There was no escape route if all went tits
up (me, not them as they didn’t have any) as in the next paddock (only
approachable over barbed wire above a stone fence) were the BULLS. Anyway,
safely through we went up a narrow path and found farm houses, then a village
at the top of the hill – the latter was a big surprise as, on our way up, it
felt like we were ascending far away from people.
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| The Old Man of Mow - very imposing and right next to a house! |
The big stone called the Old Man of Mow
does look like a man – head and shoulders - from some angles; from others it
looks like Sam the American Eagle from the Muppets. Imposing though. We wended
our way up past farm houses and out on to the village road and asked a chap how
to get to the remains of the castle. Immediately we were on the path, we felt
again as though we were miles away from civilisation. The juxtaposition
shouldn’t surprise me really, as it’s quite common over here, given the
population and the age of settlements over centuries. It was extremely windy up
on the top (worse than Stout St) and howlingly atmospheric with stunning views
out over the countryside in all directions (Cheshire Plain, Wales, and off to
the east as well).
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| The fake castle remains |
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| Balancing in the wind |
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| If we'd known it was a fake we wouldn't have done it ... You can see I am struggling |
Since then we have been back down to the
beginning of the Maccie and turned at the junction with the Trent & Mersey
– I made a pig’s ear of it, so thankfully no one was watching …. We moored up (the
pig now has a matching set of ears – I seem to have lost the knack of coming
gently alongside the towpath and gliding to a stop) not far from there and
walked into Kidsgrove to the Tesco’s for a chardonnay, food and soccer ball
shop. Strangely enough they had an English soccer ball going cheap … It was
good to have an extra carrier in Olek for the groceries, but as this time there
were bottles of elderflower cordial (2), chardonnay (2) rose (1), the shopping
was particularly heavy. It was probably just as well that we couldn’t find Rose’s
Lime cordial! From there we did a short cruise up to just past the stop lock at
Hall Green, moored up (better this time, so there is a partly deaf pig
somewhere about) at the first mooring past the water point and walked up to
have lunch at The Bleeding Wolf pub. Very nice food, and they had angostura
bitters which made David’s day as his favourite tipple (alcoholic or non, is
lemon, lime and bitters). Back to the boat, fill with water and moved back to
the nice moorings near Bridge 86 – the pig is definitely deaf – this time we
moored without too much hassle). There was an empty paddock right next to us so
Olek and I played kicks with the new ball between thistles and dock. He
scampered about and I moved carefully – the ground was full of cattle’s hoof holes.
I am not sure how he didn’t twist an ankle but I guess he lands so lightly he
doesn’t even dent the surface. I, on the other hand (foot) …
We had a BBQ dinner – we had bought the BBQ
and charcoal for when Olek was with us so we had to use it, didn’t we? Prepared
the charcoal, and cooked 6 sausages in the time it takes to prepare a dinner
party for several people, and sat out on the towpath in the lovely evening sun,
drinking rose and, for Olek, lime-ade made by Grammy (juice of 1 lime, half a
lemon, 1.5 tsp of sugar stirred in vigorously, top up with water). I got good
at making the lime-ade because I had to do it twice – Olek had placed his glass
in the place provided in his chair’s armrest and David then folded up and moved
said chair …
Yesterday we came back up through Bosley
Locks. They are the only locks Olek has done on this trip, but he has now done
them three times, so he declared they were his favourite and least favourite, hardest
and easiest, … You get the picture. It was a fun game of opposites but I guess
you had to be there. Another game we have played on the move is Hangman. He and
David had played SpongeBob Squarepants Hangman and I had told Olek that 3
letter words were hardest to guess. He has learned well. But then I am quite
tricky too – not for nothing did I play Hangman with classes of 7 year olds
back in the 70s. I didn’t realise though that I was in training for being a
grandparent!
We moored with great difficulty – not the
pig’s ear problem this time – at Gurnett Aqueduct. There are 48 hour moorings
here and room for x number of boats. However, yesterday there was room for x –
3 boats. This occurs because inconsiderate boaters want a space between them
and the boats in front and behind. Accordingly they leave half a boat length
when they moor up, so when the next person arrives and moors they think ‘ooh,
better not moor up close to these people’, and they leave half a boat length.
And so it goes on. As the moorings fill, people do share rings, but the early
arrivals don’t move, so space runs out. We ended up very stressed, tied up (on
a curve) very precariously as there were only 2 rings available, no Armco to use
the chains on and hard hard ground so no possibility of using pins – David
tried hard. In the end we tied the bow and centre rope to one ring between the
two and the stern rope to the ring shared with the boat behind. It took us
about an hour, much cursing and swearing and moving the boat back and forth
trying to work out the best part of the boat to have sticking out from the
curve. The first effort took 5 ropes (yes 5) and I wasn’t happy; so we moved
back to have the bow sticking out. That involved the aforementioned 3 ropes and
left another space for a boat in front which did get used later. We were so
stressed that when we went off to find a playing field to make good use of the
soccer ball, we left the tiller handle on, the ignition key in … What muppets!
(Sunday morning) We have left the boat at the Macclesfield Canal
Centre, and driven Olek home to Scotland. We’ve overnighted with the kids (lovely
roast beef dinner courtesy of Tim and equally lovely home made old-fashioned cherry pie and cream courtesy of Marta), and today we will drive to Stalybridge for Sybil’s 70th
birthday party, which we understand will have various entertainments. Then we’ll
head back to the boat. Tomorrow we have to move the boat to somewhere
convenient for Ed to work his magic with a new and smaller alternator. When we
have found that place, I think we are both going to wait in the blobbing
position!
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