Bartimaeus

As soon as I’d had breakfast this morning I started making some bread.  I was using a pack Clare had bought months ago.  I know that if you want fresh bread for lunch, you need to start at breakfast time.  We don’t have a mixing bowl, so I had to knead the bread in the largest pan.  That worked, but I think we do need a mixing bowl.  A small shower passed over outside just after the second kneading, but the sky turned blue after that so we set off.

The oven was drawing power straight from the generator as we drove along.  Once the oven reached temperature it started to go on and off as designed.  I could tell this was happening because the HybridMarine system kept having to rebalance the load on the engine.  It was about a mile to the locks. While I was waiting for Clare to open the first one I popped the loaf in the oven.

Clare was surprised to find the paddles were open, but I had seen a figure on the locks.  As we progressed through we kept finding the lock gates open, or the lock set our way with the paddles open.  At the fourth lock, the bread came out of the oven.  At the fifth and final lock we met our mystery helper on his bike.  We thanked him for his help, he wished us a very good day and cycled off down the flight.

Not much of the loaf survived lunch – it was declared a success.

After the locks, the canal goes through Woodseaves Cutting.  The sides of the cutting have slipped in a number of places.  We went through very slowly but once or twice bumped in to underwater obstructions.  At one point the towpath is completely covered by debris that has slumped down the slope.

We came out of the cutting in to bright sunshine.  This section had some beautiful open views which tempted us to moor up.  When we tried, we discovered we couldn’t get to the bank.  We are now in Shropshire, but if feels like we are on the Lancaster Canal again.  We had also seen kingfishers in the cutting, but the ones we saw here in the sunshine were more spectacular.

One section of canal had vivid colours on the bank, blue sky and a kingfisher.  The kingfisher eluded the camera as ever.

We found a mooring spot with rings and about four other boats.  It’s a shame we couldn’t stop at the superb view, but this mooring is very peaceful.  Or it was until I got the saw out and made some progress towards the cupboard. A few more cuts and I’ll finally be on to construction.