Bartimaeus

The Lancaster Canal has been cut a number of times by the building of the M6.  We haven’t yet reached the northern end of the connected waterway, but instead today we cycled up to a more northerly section that is still “in water”.

At Crooklands – six miles south of the original terminus in Kendal – the Lancaster Canal Trust have a trip boat, Waterwitch.  So why do we want to leave our boat and cycle to another one to pay for a trip?  We are still allowing the Silver Propellor Award to generate adventures for us.  The most northerly Silver Propellor location is a particular bridge which the trip boat goes under.

On the way back from the trip, we stopped for Sunday lunch at Smithy Inn in Holme. It was pretty good, but didn’t match the lunches I used to get at the Tushielaw Inn.  We also spotted a few places where the canal had been cut.

The water supply for the connected section of the canal is fed from Killington Reservoir and delivered via the canal.  So although these sections are not navigable, the water has to be connected.

When we got back to the boat, I had a job waiting for me. Last night when I tried to have a shower, the pump that is supposed to lift the water out of the shower tray and in to the canal wasn’t doing its thing.  I had tried to fix it before we set off.  I was already frustrated with this task when a robot voice announced it had a low battery. So the smoke alarm got disconnected too!

I spent a lot of time trying to disconnect the pipe from the pump.  All of this is in a very cramped space behind the shower. Several times I got Clare to have a go as she was sometimes able to get two hands in to do things I could only do with one.  Eventually I disconnected the pipe I believed to be the problem.  By blowing down it I managed to make something move.  It was almost as much of a struggle to get the pipe back on.  Another case of simply taking it apart and putting it back together.  It seems to be working now though – phew!

And we got a new battery for the smoke alarm while we were out – that’s working too!