Bartimaeus

Yesterday we were moored near the village of Over Kellet.  In the morning we went for a stroll to the village to have a look around.  The view over Morecambe Bay from near the village had been a feature of lock-down motorway journeys when we had stopped for a Covid-free break.

Our enjoyment of the village was somewhat spoilt by a phone call from the Canal and River Trust (CRT).  They have decided that the water levels in the Lancaster Canal are sufficiently low that they are postponing crossings of the Ribble Link to save water.  So our return to the main network has been postponed by two weeks.  We’re still working out the consequences of that, and hoping they don’t decide to delay any further.

CRT have also closed the Glasson Branch today.  I wonder what might have happened if we had happened to be in the Glasson Basin when they took that decision.

We put all that out of our minds when we welcomed (my sister) Ingrid and (brother-in-law) Dave on board.  This was the culmination of the entire plan to come on to Lancaster Canal in the first place.  We were filling with water as they arrived, and once they’d got on board we set off in the warm sunshine for a short cruise to an overnight mooring out of earshot of the motorway.

Our guests both enjoyed driving – neither had been on a canal boat before but both made good progress along this awkward stretch of canal, albeit at a suitably low pace. When things got badly weeded, we persuaded Dave that he wouldn’t have had the full experience if he didn’t go down the weed hatch (he had his shirt off already!). Ingrid felt her experience would be incomplete without “walking the plank”.

This morning they drove us back to the canal terminus to continue their holiday. They seem to have enjoyed their short visit, and we certainly did.

We then brought the boat to Carnforth as the first part of our slow journey back towards Preston. We spent the afternoon in the Carnforth Station Heritage Centre. It was very heavy on the film Brief Encounter. I found myself in a room where the film was showing, but felt it appropriate not to stay long.