No Sunday morning lie-in for us as we wanted to get going while the weather was nice. It wasn’t long before we were in Blackburn and passing Daisyfield Mill. The mill was built in the early 1870's and is now fully restored and refurbished to
the highest standards offering quality office space and training facilities over four floors and is now home to Granada TV and Lancashire NHS amongst others. We actually passed Tesco at 9.15am (too early for a Sunday opening). We arrived at Blackburn locks about 30 minutes later and set off down what, I reckon, was the worst flight of locks I have ever done L There are 6 locks and each one leaked like mad, paddles didn’t work, gates were stiff and we got stuck at lock 55 as I didn’t dare open the bottom paddles or I would have flooded the pound. I rang C&RT and they said they would send someone out. However with the paddles open a couple of inches Mary H lowered slowly and I managed to open the gate. Oh I forgot to mention that at the first lock I was just walking away when I realized that I had shut Mummy Swan and one baby in the lock and Daddy Swan and the other baby were outside. There was much squeaking from the babies (nothing from Mum and Dad as they are mute!) so I had to go back and let them out but of course with the gates leaking so much I had to open the paddles before I could open the gate – I only hope the Swan family appreciated my actions!
the highest standards offering quality office space and training facilities over four floors and is now home to Granada TV and Lancashire NHS amongst others. We actually passed Tesco at 9.15am (too early for a Sunday opening). We arrived at Blackburn locks about 30 minutes later and set off down what, I reckon, was the worst flight of locks I have ever done L There are 6 locks and each one leaked like mad, paddles didn’t work, gates were stiff and we got stuck at lock 55 as I didn’t dare open the bottom paddles or I would have flooded the pound. I rang C&RT and they said they would send someone out. However with the paddles open a couple of inches Mary H lowered slowly and I managed to open the gate. Oh I forgot to mention that at the first lock I was just walking away when I realized that I had shut Mummy Swan and one baby in the lock and Daddy Swan and the other baby were outside. There was much squeaking from the babies (nothing from Mum and Dad as they are mute!) so I had to go back and let them out but of course with the gates leaking so much I had to open the paddles before I could open the gate – I only hope the Swan family appreciated my actions!
As we got to the fifth lock we passed N/B Rose in Arden whose blog I have been following. I knew that we should pass them somewhere today but sadly I didn’t have time for a good chat – just a passing “I’ve been following your blog”!
The rain started at the last lock and really tipped down. I had no coat and got soaked but I soon dried off. It rained most of the afternoon but it turned into a nice evening. Later though the canal became quite misty and I took some photos but the mist didn’t really come out as well I had hoped.
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