Bartimaeus

Yesterday we continued to make good progress. We only travelled in the morning as Shane had a video chat in the afternoon. Bryn seems to have caught up his sleep and is no longer accepting offers of lemon tea, so the cold symptoms seem to be subsiding. Even better, Shane and I don’t seem to have caught it. Lots of sitting outside, frequent thorough hand washing and using separate towels might have done the trick. 

 He has certainly had enough energy to help us through the many locks regardless. Yesterday continued overcast. We passed a boat that was the sunniest the day got. 

There was another splash of colour passing a pheasant. The barer trees helps us see birds generally but this one was in full display on the grass. It was a beauty and we rarely see them so close by boat.

Shane was pleased of the opportunity to warm up and leave me to the helm and do plenty of locks with Bryn. Yesterday morning we found a couple of locks had been adorned with pumpkins on posts. I wonder if wildlife will enjoy eating them later. They will appreciate a bit of easy pickings as the colder weather comes in.

I got a chance to lock at Middlewich junction leaving Shane to negotiate the turn. We moored up at Middlewich for lunch shopping and the video chat. Bryn and I went to the shops. I remembered the junction as the place we had bought a quick link and also having difficulty locating a ‘hidden’ shop (a local’s description) without a map. I remembered easily how to find it this time but discovered the building has changed ownership and the emphasis is much more on gifts and less on groceries. Bryn and I spent a lot of time pondering. Then when we were at the checkout we heard a voice shout for help. They couldn’t get out. A member of staff hurried to help them out. Well if we had been locked in we would have had plenty food and would have been warm, better than being locked out.

In the evening we enjoyed the streaming of the play Nye. It was an excellent production with stuttering portrayed sympathetically and very imaginative use of hospital beds and projection. I am glad Shane managed to get the TV working with his little magic box. 

He also had a go at fixing an intermittent problem with starting the diesel engine that has been occurring in the last few days. It isn’t a cold start issue. It starts fine in the morning and works fine but later in when it has been off and being switched back on, it groans unenthusiastically and fails to start. Later on it may work again. He has tried tightening the connectors on the starter battery.

This morning it started fine, but that didn’t tell us anything new. It was a colder morning and Shane and I later decided to add layers. I had more coffee than usual, not because I needed perking up but because popping inside to boil the kettle  got me out of the cold. Also the movement and a hot mug in my hands were both warming.

Today we saw a lot of birds who also wanted to be out of the cold. As winter approaches for us, it often surprises me that some birds come here for warmth. We saw lots of redwings today enjoying our less cold climate. There was a feeding frenzy on the berries in the hedges. We also got a good view of two jays on the path and flying across in front of us and moving from shrub to shrub.

As I dropped off Shane and Bryn at a lock, I saw something flip in the water. I was keeping the boat in to the side and deciding whether to hold it on a rope, since another boat was coming down and I needed to be out of the way. Then I saw a tail flick and recognised it as a cormorant. It was diving closer to a moving boat than they usually do. I saw it emerge and dive again and pop up in front of the lock as the boat came out. As the driver passed me, he greeted, as is normal but was also distracted by the cormorant around the other side of his boat and said to me, “amazingly it is still fishing here!” Perhaps colder weather encourages more fishing and less perching.

Shane had made rolls so we had a warm lunch when we came in. We agreed that it would be good to keep going to be safely past the staircase lock that will close on Monday. The battery seems unreliable and we still had an issue with it today despite Shane’s efforts. It did start again later in the day so it hasn’t given up yet. We don’t have far to go to get to the marina and perhaps we will get help with that issue there. 

I wondered if these geese had far to go. We have seen a few skeins in the last couple of days and they may have a long journey ahead of them, trying to escape the cold.

Another cold weather sign, apart from the smoking chimneys on the boats we passed, was the huge collection of hire boats moored up three abreast. Not many people take a holiday on a boat at this time of year. A man had his boat next to a group of moored  hire boats, and apologised for not leaving much space as he didn’t expect to see any more boats today. I managed to squeeze past anyway and we got moored up not long after.