Winter joined us for Summer

 Monday 24th June 2024 at Knighton Bridge.

We have a couple of Plan Bs in mind, but it was too early to start making phone calls so we wandered off to the wharf café for breakfast.

We were immediately befriended by (and fell in love with) Winter, the wharf's ginger cat.

R had toasted tea cakes for breakfast and so had butter on his fingers, much to Winter's delight! Love him!!

We also made friends with Kiera and Daisy, two rescue dogs, both from overseas. Their owners had huge problems trying to adopt dogs in the UK and so looked overseas.

The wharf café is charming and is full of old boating memorabilia including a magnificent collection of traditional "ribbon plates" much prized by the original working boaters of old.

Some years ago, we had been given three such plates by our friend Jenni, who had inherited them from a couple who could no longer continue boating. We had kept them safe all this time and decided to offer them to Yvonne, who runs the café, for her collection. She was absolutely delighted and commented that the plates were in excellent condition with the ribbons looking like new. With many of the plates in her collection, the ribbons have deteriorated over the years. So a good home for them and we know Jenni will be thrilled to see them on the wall.

After breakfast, we started making phone calls and working with "CanalPlan" to work out what our best option was to get to Liverpool on time and fit in our planned trip north by car.

Eventually, we managed to book a mooring for MM at Overwater Marina just south of Hack Green from Monday 1st July to Monday 22nd July, which gives us enough time to get to Liverpool at a leisurely pace.

We have been most impressed with the staff at Norbury who have been super helpful and friendly and, after big "Thank Yous" all round, we set off north past this very brave heron beautifully reflected in the water.

Going into Grub Street Cutting, M was curious about a bridge described as carrying a footpath and a stream above the canal. M set off to explore and found the footpath but no sign of the stream. What she did find, next to the bridge is "Loynton Moss", a nature reserve described as a floating bog with an interesting plant community. This rather overgrown post marks the entrance.

While M explored the delights atop the high sides of the Grub Street Cutting, R and MM waited patiently below.

At Knighton Bridge, we moored up MM at a very peaceful location with mooring rings and shade from the sun.

Although this was a very quiet mooring, we could hear sounds of a diesel engine a few hundred yards along the towpath. Upon investigation, this turned out to be a rather delapidated diesel pump that was sucking water out of the canal.

The suction pipe ran across the towpath and the outlet from the pump went several hundred yards across the fields into the distance. No idea what it was watering.

 As night fell, the diesel pump switched itself off, so silence reigned.

Since 19th June: 5 miles, ) locks and 2.4 hours.

Trip:56 miles, 35 locks and 31.7 hoours.