Bartimaeus

We have been this way before and Bryn has done all of the parts of the journey but not all in one trip. I am not sure how familiar it seemed to him.

We passed a salt processing plant, which I remembered from many year ago before Bryn was born. Work was going on at it and, at this time of year, floating orangey yellow buoys telling you to keep away from the dammed area, looked a bit like pumpkins.

We remembered a large pointy mound of salt being prominent but couldn't see it straight away. As we passed we could see there was a very large pile behind the buildings looking like distant snowy mountains, but not as impressive as earlier viewings. Still enough to scare off all devilish things.

There was a sign we only saw from the other side, telling you to drift past the buoys. Not easy to follow instructions that had disappeared. When Bryn and I got off to work a lock I could see a lot of abandoned warning signs! Luckily nothing bad happened to us anyway.

Our destination for the day was Middlewich. There is a junction there and we were turning left. Bryn and I worked a lock and then he left me to close up, while he went round to the next one to get it ready. I wasn't alone at the lock though - there were some decorated bollards and on the other side were some unseasonal daffodils and on my side was a figure that was a cross between a scarecrow and a snowman ... Or a snowman dressed as a scarecrow in a fancy dress costume as a pop star. The scarecrow didn't dress scarily.

Meanwhile another boat had come from the other direction and turned up to the lock that Bryn had prepared, before we had got there. They were apologetic at stealing the lock but I said it was fair. They got there first so it was their lock. We were in no hurry and were about to just moor up for the night in Middlewich.

In the morning we went to the shop and a little walk around the part of the junction we hadn't been to this time. We spotted Rakiraki that we had been on before as a hire boat. It was disguised with a new coat of paint in company colours but has been just sold. I wonder if we will recognise it next time. It could have a new paint job and a new name. If they keep the tiller, it had a distinctive tiller pin, but it used to have a duck painted on the side making it very easy to recognise. 

At this time of year the jolly flower displays I remembered from visiting in our first summer on Bartimaeus were not to be seen, but there were a couple of other decorative items.

It was was more like a boat than a bench and it was a wet one too. On the other side was a bench that was more bench like but made to look like part of a lock and a bit like the platform nine and three quarters in Harry Potter. Will sitting in this bench magic you away to an old boat over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct to some other school of Witchcraft and Wizardry?

Middlewich has some signs telling the history of the canals. One board was about a woman who as a baby was taken in by a man and woman working a boat. It didn't explain if she ever knew who her actual parents were, but she seemed to have enjoyed her life as a boat person and when she stopped living on a boat she lived in the lock cottage. She wanted her story remembered since the boating days had died. She couldn't read or write but someone wrote down her story.

We set off after lunch. There was only one more lock to do. Bryn had noticed something odd. I have to say I hadn't noticed it before. Lock gate arms are usually wooden or metal, but this one had a repair with cement, which seemed to have been to hold the metal handle into the wood. It was cracking up a bit now and seemed a strange choice, unless we were wrong and it some sort of grey wood filler. It was decorated with a jolly red flower.

I hadn't realised it was his last lock until afterwards. He had certainly had plenty during the week. 

Shane pointed out a boat coming up called Two Hoots. We have seen a few boats with that name, perhaps it was the boat or just the name that was familiar... or just an owl. When Bryn was very little Shane was carrying him in a back carrier. Bryn was only able to say single words at the time but suddenly, in a shopping centre, began shouting, "Owl owl!" This confused Shane but sure enough there was a man from a bird of prey centre holding a real owl. He still likes owls but not sure he gave two hoots about the wine drinking owls on the boat.

We moored up in a pretty spot and decided to have a walk before I set about the curry I had planned. Just as we were closing up Shane spotted a kingfisher on our bow rope! We were very excited. Since getting the glazed back windows we keep looking out at the tiller hoping we'll some day see a kingfisher on it. 

We enjoyed our walk even with no more kingfisher sightings. It is a pretty area, though the path was very muddy and full of cowpats. We walked back to the boat with Bryn for the last time.

In the morning we were just going to be going to the train. Over breakfast Bryn found an advert for a post he really likes the look of which was good to see when his work situation is currently hanging in the balance and possibly tipped more towards redundancy that anything else. It was with hope and enthusiasm that he left us. Unfortunately his journey was not fun with delays and ended up with five trains and a 12 hour journey. Perhaps it won't be a bad thing after all to live somewhere else!

He had gone back in time for Halloween in the hope there might be a social event at his work, but nothing seems to have been organised. People there might be too down about their uncertain futures. I had bought a little pumpkin before he had even arrived in case bad weather meant we were looking for an indoor distraction and he happened to fancy carving a pumpkin. We hadn't got round to it and I had managed to cut my hand on the door so was a bit tentative about the carving and settled for making a little cauldron, and some spicy pumpkin, lentil, potato and parsnip soup, as orange as the cauldron and with cheesy bread.