Dog Days - Part Two

 We love the Middlewich Branch - it is open, lots of lovely mooring and the towpath has very little overgrowth of high and wide weeds. And it's very picturesque.

But before getting on to the Middlewich, we had an appointment near Kings Lock at the junction, plus we needed to visit the chandlery - we have never had spare Morse cables and given we've had the boat 10 years, Ed suggested it was time we did as they are a bit prone to sudden unheralded failure. So we moored before Kings Lock on the visitor moorings - there's a good long stretch of mooring space but it was quite noisy as it is very close to the road. However once inside the boat the noise recedes. 

One bonus was that we were moored almost directly opposite the small Morrison's supermarket - easy access to magnums ...

The pound above the lock is pretty wide and there were a lot of swans about, both in the water and on the towpath. 

Quite late at night I took this photo out of the galley window - it had been raining, as you can see by the drips on the window, but the swans were still up and about! They looked beautiful in the fading light.

After our appointment in the morning, we headed down the lock and got water at the most inconveniently placed tap I've ever seen - right on the corner at the junction but only accessible from the T&M. While David filled with water, I went over to buy fish and chips at the chippie that had some good reviews. The service was great, the fish was cooked while I waited and tasted good, the potato fritter was really nice and crunchy, but the chips were decidedly soggy and not good - they had been cooked some time before and left to rest in the warm mortuary of the heatlamp. We didn't eat until we had been through the lock and moored up - that probably didn't help the chips. But the fish didn't suffer, so I think the chips were already deceased and rigor mortis had let go its grip.

I was very amused by the cygnets at our lovely mooring above the first lock on the Middlewich Branch - when on the towpath their mode of communication was hissing, but once in the water, having just stopped hissing at me until I directed them off the side of the towpath, they were back to their begging mewing. It's like they didn't know I was the same person they had been threatening less than 30 seconds before. Birdbrains, obviously!

A conclave of cygnets, plotting their hissing strategy ...

Fortunately they tended to ignore Yogi - he was below their eye-line and perhaps too hairy to qualify as food ...

We (when I say we, I mean I) did a pumpout and filled with diesel at Aqueduct Marina and I noticed while we were there that there were lots of wasps about. I killed about 4 inside the boat in the 30 minutes or so that we were moored there. And when we left the marina, having changed our minds about reversing back to the extensive moorings with picnic tables a couple of hundred yards behind us, I noticed a wasps' nest on the towpath side - there was a gap in the grass above the concrete edging and lots of wasps coming and going through the hole. I phoned the marina and told them its location - they were pleased to know as they had been trying to find it. I hope they have had it removed/fumigated/eradicated.

We had pulled up a couple of kilometres further on where we thought would be a lovely place to spend the afternoon and night. BUT as soon as we got off the boat, there was an overwhelming smell of pigs. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! A ghastly smell - it brings back terrible olfactory memories of Organic Pig Farm no 2 at Wells back in 1990 where we B&Bed with the kids, not realising how stenchy pigs are en masse. 

So we moved to above Minshull Lock - no pigs, only horses and a lovely place to let Yogi play on the towpath without the lead on.

David pulling on the middle rope to bring the boat to the place we wanted to moor above the lock. He looks happy, doesn't he?

Lovely sunset

Same one, different position...

 

The following morning, after lots of rain, in the evening and overnight (the sunset was misleading!), we got ready to head away. One task I did was to let down the 'blind' on the cratch cover as it was terribly wet, having been left wound up all night. But as I let it down, out flew an Aqueduct wasp, wet, bedraggled and very pissed off. The little bastard stung me! Viciously! And then it flew away, unscathed. I was brave, but I did swear and I did yell for David to bring vinegar and a paper towel.

One thing I did which I shouldn't have - no, trust me, swearing is obligatory when stung by a wasp - I pressed down on the sting site when I probably should have pinched it to stop the venom spreading. (Olek suggested later that I should have sucked the venom out, but I am fairly sure that would not have been a good idea...)

Anyway, quite a deal of pain for a couple of hours or so, and a lot of swelling over the next couple of days.

The swelling starts with puffiness on the back of my right hand. Considering I was stung on the top joint of my thumb it's bizarre the swelling was so far away.

Pretty swollen and tight. I couldn't clench my fist very well so my strong right hook was affected...

The next morning, my wrist was swollen too

See how wounded I was?

However, we moved on because I am brave and didn't need a lie down for a wasp sting. At Cholmondeston Lock above Venetian Marina the volunteers made a pig's ear of letting the water into the lock - they lifted the paddles far too fast and I could not stop the boat from surging forward to hit the top gates. When I complained, the volunteer said that my husband had said it was OK. What bullshit! 

After the lock, David and I discussed what he had said and the only flaw in David's words was that he was polite (read: not stroppy enough). He promised to be far more assertive in future (read: more like Marilyn).

On we went to the Barbridge Junction (had to do the turn in 2 goes, with reverse applied...) and then on past Hurleston Junction (for the start of the Llangollen Canal) - that junction was much further away from both Barbridge and Nantwich than I remembered! We stopped to throw out rubbish at the Nantwich services, didn't bother getting water and then headed on across the aqueduct. 

The moorings at Nantwich are really good, but a bit more signage with a picture showing the extent of the 2 day moorings, the permit holder ones and the next set of 2 day and 14 day moorings would be helpful at each end.

As it happened, we moored up right in front of the people who had helped David at the Cholmondeston Lock - and I had been a bit short with the woman about the speed of the paddle raising. I did apologise to her as soon as I saw her there at Nantwich. She declared that those volunteers are the worst she's ever dealt with and she doesn't let them help her. I wish David and I had known!

Because my hand and wrist were still swelling I decided it would be sensible to take some antihistamine tablets. I had scoured the boat looking for some, but couldn't find any; so it meant I had to walk to Boots. I felt distinctly woozy while walking there - a 15 minute walk, I think. Could have been that my sea-legs were confusing me with being on solid ground, but I did feel decidedly strange. 

Am I alone though in finding pharmacists singularly risk averse and unhelpful here in the UK? I knew I needed antihistamines, but Irene had raised the possibility that the sting site might have been infected. So I asked the pharmacist how I would know. Well, it would be red, puffy and hot apparently. Fine, that's good information and it was already red, puffy and felt warm to me. But considering I was feeling a bit woozy and couldn't tell if my hand was hot (because I was in my wooziness), I asked the pharmacist to feel the back of my hand to check. Oooh, no. Couldn't do that in case I was infected ... Can she not wash her hands afterwards? What happened to being the first port of call with a health issue? Chocolate teapot was the politest thing that sprung to mind, but nary a word passed my lips while in the shop ...

So I bought antihistamines and headed back to the boat, fuming about jobsworths and wusses. 😡😠

I took a tablet and went for a lie down and a sleep. And while I slept, the swelling started to recede. Good job!

And my sweet temper was restored. 😇😇

The afternoon sleep was a boon because I needed to be awake late that night - Marta, Trevor, Darby, Karol and Olek were coming through to collect Yogi on their way home to Scotland. Their plane frfom Poland landed at about 4.40pm, they had to drive to Chipping Norton to drop off Olivia and pick up Olek, then drive to us at Nantwich to collect Yogi and then home to Crossmichael. What a long trip!

It was about 11pm by the time they got to us. We had sent them a pin of where to park the car, and they let us know when they were 5 minutes away. We got up and headed down to meet them.

We thought Yogi had been happy with us, but he went absolutely nuts when he heard Marta's voice! It was very lovely to see. We all went back to the boat - the kids climbed up the steep bank so the rest of us had to - I couldn't have done it in the daylight because it was so very steep. And I had to do it on all fours so I didn't lose my balance and fall backwards... We bundled up Yogi's gear and handed back the bedding that they had left on board after their weekend with us and walked them back down to the car - on the towpath, the steps down to the road and along the footpath - not the bank on the way back thank heavens!! We turned off the Do Not Disturb function on our phones so we would see the text when it came to say they had arrived home safely. Much relief when that one came in at about 4am! 💗💖💖💕

The Nantwich Aqueduct - beautiful construction.

 It's all go in our life on the canal - but that morning, we had a bit of a sleep in and then went off to the supermarket: there was some shopping to do and cooking to be done because we had Neil and Neill coming to stay that day. But more of those adventures shortly!

 

I'm having a 'mare about the trees growing unabated on the canal bank and their capacity to break down the structure of the bank - a case in point. Seen on our way from Nantwich.

 

See, it's bloody big!

Here's where we moored to await the arrival of the beaut Bude contingent - the lovely Neill and Neil.

FYI, when it's raining, David sits just inside the stern doors so he can chat to me without getting wet - and he is closer to the kettle for tea-making duties!

I think this contains valuable advice. Particularly the last point ... but both preceding points are pretty important too, I reckon! And Crows are very clever birds, hence our motorhome is called the CROW - it stands for Cafe Rata on Wheels and it is driven by a clever bird ...