That is the sound of a big heavy alternator falling into the bilges as it’s recently engineered mounting succumbed to metal fatigue. Luckily I had just run the bilge pump, so there was not much water there. The alternator is probably fine, we just need to get the mounting rebuilt one more time. Or maybe buy a generator. This pretty much sums up my feelings on the issue. I got up early this morning and checked the weather forecast. It…
Two years ago we visited the Dunham Massey Hall, and I posted the story that we got from one of the guides of Catherine, Countess of Stamford and Warrington, a former circus performer who married the seventh Earl of Stamford and Warrington. I received a comment on the blog from Lynne Cox saying that much of this was wrong. At first I defended the National Trust. Look, The Guardian says the same thing. However, as Lynne pointed out to me,…
I was woken around 4am this morning by the boat crunching against the side of the canal. After two days of heavy rain the canal had reached the level of the towpath, and the fenders had nothing to press against. Round the corner in Piccadilly Basin the towpath was entirely submerged. About half a month’s worth of rain fell in the past 24 hours. Manchester canal flooding was mentioned on the BBC news. I was responsible for some of it….
How many wonderful classical music pieces have been ruined for you? Let’s count the ways: used in tv or movies, overplayed on the radio, spruced up with a disco backbeat, or – worst yet – spurious lyrics added. We experienced it all last night. It was billed as the Last Night of the Hallé Proms. Not the legit concert at the Royal Albert Hall, but the Manchester version thereof. Very promising program: Dvorak, Borodin, Bizet, Puccini, some lesser known stuff…
I will say this for the Pre-Raphaelites, they had great pictures frames. That one looks like a doorway to a temple… a temple of bad art, but a temple none the less. Don’t bother with the picture though or you will be stuck wondering how Eve in the Garden of Eden managed to shave her armpits. How about this frame? It could be the doorway to an up-market brothel. Then there’s this. It’s a frame so humungous that it has…
Today we slogged down another eighteen locks through the grungy industrial outskirts of Greater Manchester. No more foxes (or cows) but a suspected mink sighting. Sorry, it was too fast for the camera. The Ashton Canal is not the most scenic, but not as bad as some accounts. I did not see any used condoms, needles, or prostitutes under the bridges. The locks were a bit of a challenge, as they all the paddles were locked to prevent vandalism, and…
We raced down the sixteen Marple Locks this morning. With additional crew members one person can go on ahead to get the next lock set, so there is no waiting. We also got off to an early enough start the the first boat we met coming the other way was in the bottom lock. At the bottom of the locks is the Marple Aqueduct. You can’t really see how impressive it is when you are on it, but you do…
This was the view from the sofa this morning. That’s a preening heron on the dead branch. The heron is sitting in a designated vole habitat. I’ve bemoaned before the decline in the vole (or water rat) population from when I was a kid. When the Bugsworth Basin was being rehabilitated a vole colony was discovered. To make sure that the voles were safe from marauding canal boats a special pond was dug for them and they were lovingly transplanted….
The canals were used to transport bulk goods. We’ve passed canal wharfs for coal, salt, china clay, beer, even sugar and chocolate. Tonight we are at Bugsworth Basin, as the end of the Peak Forest Canal. It’s the largest inland port on the canal system, and it was solely devoted to quicklime and limestone. Sorry, it doesn’t all fit in one photo. Limestone is mostly calcium carbonate, CaCO₃. If you heat it you can squeeze out a carbon dioxide molecule,…
Today we bid farewell to the lovely Macclesfield Canal with its swirling bridges… … and milestones that look like tombstones. We turned onto the Peak Forest Canal. This continues on the 518 foot contour, through an increasingly hilly landscape. We moored up in New Mills. The town does not really have any visitor moorings as all the available spaces have been turned into long term moorings managed by the local marina, but we found a spot that is not terrible,…