Saturday 11thth June 2016
Well our noses are well and truly out of joint because we did not get an invite to Liz’s 90th birthday bash in London. There are probably a lot of people in the same frame of mind as we are and here is an example of how some of them have decided to snub her by turning her into a garden scarecrow.
Morning started out fine as we motored up to our next stop which was only about 1 ½ hours further down the canal so that we could take on water and hopefully do a bit of a bike ride. On the way we passed this poor forlorn boat who is soon to become a canal reef.
We also passed a stream of boats on their way to a wedding. The bride of course being on the last boat and probably crossing her fingers, toes and legs that it was not going to rain on her parade as there were very threatening clouds in the distance. We didn’t get the best picture due to the movement of the boat but they had done it up with ropes of real flowers. Very novel way to make your way to your wedding!!
Our good German friends were shadowing us this morning and like us pulled into Higher Poynton to top up with some supplies.
Once moored up we got the trusty bikes out ready for our 8k bike ride. Our canal guide books provide us with lots of information such as routes for bike rides, museums, information centers, shops, weekend markets, walking tracks etc which are invaluable.
Then the heavens opened!!! The view from the front of our boat – great weather for the ducks and Canadian geese!!
So ten days of beautiful sunshine were certainly a thing of the past and we are going to have to learn how to work around what they call the British summer. The forecast until the 17th June is rather bleak but we need to soldier on as we will get too far behind otherwise.
Spent the rest of today catching up on paperwork and doing a recky on our schedule. So far we are a little behind from where we should be and due to the Rochdale canal being out for the whole summer we are now going to be going anticlockwise rather than clockwise around our planned route. We spent about two hours redoing the spreadsheet and also used the opportunity to put in some days off for side trips to York and the Lakes District in July and August. Spent the rest of the day doing a jigsaw puzzle and then will go to the local pub tonight as there is a very important soccer match on between England and Russia. Really just going along for the atmosphere in the pub.
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