Monday 8th--Tuesday, 16th June
We stayed at Higher Poynton for eight nights. On Thursday, 11th June, Trev caught a bus to Stockport, a train to Coventry and a bus to Kenilworth to visit the dentist. When he had finished, our friends Ronnie and Pete picked him up and took him back to their house in Warwick, where Trev stayed overnight. Then, before 6.00 a.m., Trev and Pete, accompanied by two other friends, set off for a weekend in Northumberland, staying at the house of the fifth member of the group. In their youth, these five likely lads were all runners, and used to run together a lot. Once a year they try to recreate the good times, though now it involves walks rather than runs. Trev assures me they're all tucked up in bed by 9.00 p.m. with a mug of Horlicks and a bedtime story.

I don't usually stay by myself online--that's online along the canal towpath, not on the internet, you understand..........--but at Higher Poynton it feels very safe, and there are always lots of other boats moored up there. So I had the luxury of four days on my own, and sewed and computed to my heart's content! I could even eat curry and fried onions without anyone complaining! On Friday, Angela brought her daughter, Kate, and two grandchildren, John and Elizabeth, for a picnic. Thet also brought a breadmaker I had had delivered from Amazon to Angela's house. We unpacked it and found it had two dents in the front. Closer inspection revealed that the box had actually been repaired on the inside, so it had obviously been sent out before and returned. A bit much, I think. So we packed it all up and it had to go back. That meant that Angela or Michael had to stop in all day on Monday to wait for it to be collected, as well as having waited in all day Thursday for it to arrive. Fortunately they're long suffering souls!

Trev came home on Monday afternoon, and then on Tuesday we had a service done on the boat engine. Trev does the oil change and filters himself, but he has no pretensions to being an engineer and wanted someone to check it all over. At teatime, Angela and Michael came with the grandchildren and another breadmaker, but this one Angela had fetched from John Lewis, and it was dent free!

Wednesday, 17th June
At last we're up and off again. The first priority was to to get water. It was about one hundred yards behind us, but, unusually, there are two winding holes here close together, so we turned round, went back up to the other winding hole, turned there and filled up with water. This took ages as we were practically empty. I had been washing in a teacup whilst Trev was away, to conserve the water. Now we could have showers and do the washing.

We continued along the canal to Macclesfield, where we moored near Bridge 37. We had hoped to be able to moor in the Macclesfield Canal Centre so that we could have electricity and get the mountain of washing done, but they had no room, so we moored on the towpath side. In the evening we went to a Thai restaurant in Marple and had an enjoyable meal, though in the morning, I wished Trev hadn't ordered the second bottle of wine!

7.5 miles

Thursday, 18th and Friday, 19th June
A first for us today--we had a Tesco shopping order delivered to the boat. I had never expected that Trev would agree to it, "only for wimps" "I can carry all we need" etc. But I think he was somewhat deterred by the length of the shopping list, and encouraged by the fact that there was a GBP5 voucher from Tesco online in the Good Food magazine, and he agreed without any prevarication. It was so simple to order online, and there was room to give the special instructions for delivery. I found the postcode of the pub just near us and entered that, and added that we were on a boat on the canal. The delivery slot was for between 9.00 and 11.00 a.m. and just after 9.00 Trev thought he would go up to the bridge to see where the van might park, and there was the Tesco van, just pulling up. It all worked out very well, so much so that I think I might be allowed to do it again. That will be nice, as my arms have already stretched by about 6" with carrying all this shopping over the last six years!

We put the shopping away and then walked into Macclesfield to look round the shops and to buy a few things that Mr. Tesco didn't stock. There's a good range of shops in Macclesfield and an excellent market. Then we set off along the canal again, but had hardly moved a mile before we met "Piston Broke" coming towards us. We had met Lyn and Paul on the Thames last year, and kept in touch, so we moored up and had a chat for a while before bidding farewell for another year or so! We only went a short diatance before deciding to moor up at Gurnett Aqueduct. There were some nice moorings here and they enticed us in! It was a lovely spot to moor and we so enjoyed it we stayed two nights. On the second evening we went to the pub, which is just below the aqueduct. Some years ago we had had a meal here with Audrey and Ray, when they had their tiny boat called "Meinz's a Pint"! But it had changed and didn't seem to have the same atmosphere as before. C'est la vie, je pense.........

1 mile

Saturday, 20th June
Apathy seemed to have set in this morning, and when it rained, that helped to make the decision. So we stayed where we were, but by lunchtime, the weather had improved and we set off again. We went through the Oakwood Swing Bridge, where I felt empowered as I held up the traffic as the boat went through. Trev spotted a sign for a shop so we moored up and he went to fetch the Saturday papers and some milk. We were aiming for Bosley locks, intending to go down the flight and to moor up at the bottom, but Trev spotted a nice looking mooring spot and we pulled in. As we came along, we had started the breadmaker. It takes three and a quarter hours to make a loaf, and it hadn't finished by the time we moored up, so Trev decided to see what would happen if we turned the engine off and let the breadmaker finish its cycle. It worked OK. Most electrical appliances require the engine to be running whilst they're working. For example, we can't use the washing machine, the hoover or the iron unless the engine is going. Oh, and by the way, the bread is delicious! We bought a Kenwood BM250 breadmaker, despite its poor write up in the Which? magazine. It is the one which Angela & Michael have, and their bread is delicious. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, what?!

So here we are, moored up in the countryside, very comfortable and content!

3 miles

SummerCruise 2009

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