And the winner is.......

Wigan. It was strange how this came about, really. We had decided to go back to Burscough to empty the cassettes, after which we were going to get Tesco to do a delivery to us at the Ring O' Bells pub in  Lathom. (This is a very useful system, by the way! They won't deliver to a business, i.e. The pub, so you pick a nearby house as the delivery address, then tell them in the special comments section not to deliver to the house, but to look out for your boat on the canal and park in the pub car park - simple! Last time we did it, the delivery man simply arrived at the side of the boat with all of our groceries (mostly wine!) on a hand cart. What a gent!)
However, as soon as we got under way we both felt the folly of heading all the way back there and made a joint decision to carry on to Wigan and wait for the lock repair to be completed. Why take so long to come to what appears to be the obvious conclusion, you may ask? The answer is that mooring in Wigan has heretofore been regarded as distinctly risky. There are secure moorings outside the C&RT HQ building (always occupied), with the implication that to moor on the rings opposite is, by default, insecure. Indeed, you didn't ever see too many boats moored in this vicinity in previous years. All I can say is that the stoppage has changed that!

Wigan's canal community

We had to go to the front of the queue as there were no other spaces (the boat behind us subsequently moved on and is currently in third place on the grid immediately in front of the temporary dam at Lock 1). It has so far been a fine place to stop, even though we usually choose a more rural location. There has been no unruly element and, in fact, the first person who spoke to me said, "I hope you enjoy your stay in Wigan"! It was a nice thing to say, even if she was old enough to be my mother....
It's interesting to note that we are still thinking like road users at times. We were hunting supermarkets on the Net when Elaine asked, "How far are we from Ince? There's a Lidl there."
I immediately began planning the route in my head but was thinking like a motorist. From Trencherfield Mill, back past the train stations, then the baths, then the ex police station, etc.
"It's quite a way", I said, before my slowly calcifying brain realised that all we had to do was follow the canal round to the start of the Wigan Flight and we were virtually there! A one kilometre walk each way saw us provisioned for the night and next morning.
After this, I headed for the dam and a quick recce. Well, here's the dam, and the junk revealed on the bed of the pound beneath....

Hopefully, all fixed up soon.