Friday 7th October

Yesterday we went as far north as we are going this year so today we are starting our journey southwards to our winter mooring :-) I have to say though that I think I’m ready to go home but I think the weather has a lot to do with that. The wind that dominated yesterday had died down overnight so my plants were able to go back on the roof. As we left Anderton Richard said that he thought we might well miss the showers that were forecast when the heavens opened even though the sky was brilliant blue! We passed a herd of young cattle having a paddle – they did look odd! We soon arrived back in Middlewich, had lunch and walked into town to Tesco. As we set off to go up the next three locks the heavens opened and it just poured down. I was doing the locks and got rather wet. We filled up with diesel at King’s Lock then headed west. The Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union is connected to the Trent and Mersey via a small stretch of canal known as the Wardle Branch Canal. This was originally owned by the Trent and Mersey and caused major problems when planning the Middlewich Branch as huge tolls were to be imposed by the owners of Wardle Lock. As a result in 1852 a diversion of 327 yards was proposed to avoid the lock and connect the Middlewich Branch to the Trent and Mersey elsewhere. This, however, never happened. There were two more locks to do and it rained while doing both of them :-( After the second lock we pulled over, we had had enough, and moored up for the night. While I have been writing today’s blog Millie has been lying on the table with her head on my arm – it is quite hard to type like this!