Church Minshull, Middlewich Branch, Shropshire Union Canal

These hawthorn berries look almost good enough to eat.

An uneventful day. We started early as the weather was forecast to turn.

We were through Middlewich by 10 and then it began to drizzle so we tied up after the first lock for a couple of hours and then came on here in glorious sunshine and strong winds.

There was a historic boat gathering going on in Middlewich. I think "hysteric" boat owners are even more sullen and unfriendly than fishermen. Not one acknowledged David as he went past - on tickover! I know we are not worthy only having a modern (although now ten year old) boat but a smile or waive would be nice and friendly.

A pretty romantic card. It began with a turquoise card blank. I found some yellow, orange and turquoise patterned paper which I used to cover the middle of the card adding a strip of gold peel-off along the join at the top and a strip of gold patterned peel-off along the bottom and a scalloped border made from gold card.

The two hearts are a sort of gel peel-off bubble thingies, as is the "I Love You" sentiment.

Higginstone Farm Flash, Trent and Mersey Canal

I have been trying to get a photograph of the "pumpout" boat at Anderton Marina for a few years now. And I still have not got it. The boat is called Two Loos Lautrec. How do they think of these names?

We managed to dodge the odd showers today and after stopping at the shop in Moore for some essentials we got to Preston Brook tunnel to find 3 hire boats waiting for the time slot. By the time we entered the tunnel there was another boat behind us.

Dutton Stop Lock was slow going and it wasn't until the first boat was almost through that people from other boats began to help out. Then, when it was our turn, there was a boat coming in the opposite direction. While we got that boat through, two more turned up behind him. It was now "on the hour" so they only had 10 minutes to get to the lock for their time slot. But, as the crew of both boats declined to come up to the lock to help out I went on a go slow and did everything extra slowly. Hope they missed the tunnel.

Then it was "on! on!" until the helmsman mutinied and we stopped for the night.

Here is a recycled Christmas card. I cut out the front of an old card and matted it onto gold mirror card, cream card and more gold mirror card before fixing it to a card blank with sticky fixers.

I matted another piece of cream card onto mirror card and added a gold peel-off sentiment.

Oughtrighton, Bridgewater Canal

Eating up the miles on the way back to Birmingham. David is doing marathon times on the back.

Normally we do about 4 hours a day, but we have been putting in 7-8 hour days since leaving Liverpool.

The Barton Swing Bridge was closed (but open for us!), so no excitement there. That was the only obstacle for us today.

We managed to get here just before it started raining - so all in all, a good day's cruising.

Summer is over, but there are still a few wasps around. All right, I know it's a bee on the card, but what with seeing the hives at Litherland, I looked this card out.

I think the card is shown sideways as it is supposed to be a flower box made from brown hessian on a background of orange hessian with the bee and flowers. I matted the whole thing onto some blue vellum and then onto a white card blank.

Ince Moss, Leigh Branch Leeds and Liverpool Canal

I don't know who paid for these signs - must have been Sustrans 'cos they only give the distances in times with a bicycle by the side. Very useful for the rest of us. And: just how fast do you have to pedal to get there in that time?

The weather forecast was heavy rain, so we set of in trepidation. It turned out to be rather a nice day, and quite warm and sunny at times.

David had a rest and a sleep by the side of Apperly Lock and then we came on here.

There were, surprisingly, several boats on the move which was a bit of a shock after the last few days.

I found this topper in Clinton Cards as a tag for a present. I mounted it onto some dark blue card and threaded the blue ribbon through and tied it in a knot.

Finally, I added a blue gem in the bottom right hand corner.

Gt Score Swing Bridge, Leeds and Liverpool Canal

One of the new BW beehives which have been set up near Litherland. What next?

We were up and off in time to get to Bridge 6 for 9pm so that BW could let us through the first of the two swing bridges that they operate for us.

After Bridge 9 we were on our own with 5 of the b*** in the next 3 miles. The first one is a footbridge and you need a handcuff key and the Watermate key to get at the pull-up lock before pushing the bridge open.

Then comes Maghull Hall Bridge. This one has handcuff locks on both barriers which have to be undone and the barriers pushed closed by hand. Then the bridge is operated by the Watermate key and is electric.

The third bridge, Shaws, is another footbridge and you need the handcuff key again to push the bridge open and closed.

Methodist Swing Bridge has push barriers again, but you have to put the Watermate key in the box first to release the locks. Then the bridge is electrically opened and closed.

The final bridge is Bell's and this time the barriers are electric, but the bridge is a push one.

Confusing or what?

Before finally mooring up we had another fully electric swing bridge and two more that are fixed open. We moored on the landing stage of the last one.

A long, DL, card with a bought topper of a drawing of a smart couple. It is all black,white and silver, with sparkles that don't show on the photo. I added some colour with the red and black spotted ribbon.

Litherland, Leeds and Liverpool Canal

"It's not the leaving of Liverpool...." Our 9 days in Liverpool came to an end this morning. We have had a really great time, visiting the Cathedral (dark and lumbering), the Walker Gallery (great pictures but noisy kids), the Tate (wasted half an hour of my life) , the Bluecoat (confusing) and, finally, Port Sunlight and the Lady Lever Museum (got Burne-Joneses - so fantabulous!).

My nephew's wedding was yesterday at a mock Elizabethan hotel in the Wirral. David had to hire a DJ and all the accoutrement's and we were transported from outside the Premier Hotel at Albert Docks (that's what gave me the idea of taking the boat in the first place).

Although the wedding was a straightforward registry office type do, the bride is Jewish and as the evening began there was a lot of singing and dancing and the bride's father and the groom were thrown up in a blanket and the couple lifted up on chairs and carried around. It was really lovely, especially as Matt is usually a really quiet and retiring sort of guy.

There was only one boat due out today, and as we managed to get the hire suit returned by 10 we asked if we could accompany it and leave a day early.

So, at 1130 we set off back through all the docks to Stanley Locks and back onto the L&L. The weather turned sunny just after leaving so it was very pleasant and, as usual, the BW guys were very obliging and helpful - even though one boat had Everton supporters and we had a Manchester United one. They did threaten to leave us to it several times though.



I have finished the Christmas cards for Amber Moon. I used a similar picture to last year but this time I mounted them onto a "label" Nestabilities die cut mat.

I used DL cards (long thin ones) and wrapped the ribbon around a piece of card before sticking it down onto the base, then added pictures with sticky fixers. I suck a peel-off greeting above the ribbon on the right hand side and two sets of three gold dots on the sides of the green matt.

Salthouse Dock, Liverpool

I am gradually filling in the blanks in the blogs now we are back on G3 - but even so I keep losing the signal here too.

We had a wander around Albert Dock this morning. David went to see the BW Harbourmaster and then we had another wander around town. It has been beautiful, warm, sunny day and we haven't needed a fire.

The DUCKs launch regularly by us and send a mini tsuname out making all the boats bounce and bang against the moorings. We do get a warning though, because they blow a horn as they are about to launch down the slipway.

This evening we took a walk to the riverbank. The sun was setting and there was a lovely pink glow over Birkenhead (can there be such a thing?) Almost romantic!







Back to this lovely boat horse in Hungerford. I printed the larger picture onto paper in "draft" so that it is sort of washed out and then matted it onto white paper and then red. The second picture was printed normally onto photo paper and then matted in the same way. I wrapped some white spotted, red ribbon around the larger panel and then stuck them onto a white card blank.