Oh for night vision goggles!

Last night around midnight I opened the hatch to enjoy the quiet of the night. I do this on a regular basis, particularly if we are moored in a rural location. On this occasion, however, I could hear rustling in the woods opposite. Pitch black, there was no way of knowing what was out there until I heard a quite loud crack as a branch was snapped underfoot. I quickly snapped on my torch and was rewarded with six distinct pinpricks of light shining back at me. Three deer foraging just across from us! They didn't instantly scatter but just melted away into the night as Elaine and I watched, grateful to have witnessed their presence.

Today was shopping day so we took the (free) train to Burscough, filled the granny trolley (damn those grandkids!) and had a quick scoop at The Hopvine before returning to Lottie. We love this pub, I drink the bitter and Elaine the lager that they brew on the premises. The food here is good but basic fare but if you want to dine of an evening a booking is essential, with weekends booked two or three weeks in advance. I mean, it's good but......

You may remember me talking about getting a new camera a while back? The iPhone is limited and our old camera isn't wifi enabled so we did some investigating. Turns out a camera would be £350 minimum so we thought why not get a laptop instead so that I could use my old camera and connect via the USB port? Laptops were coming in a little cheaper at £300 for the minimum spec I would accept. After a little more digging by Elaine she found the solution - an Apple cable that linked my camera to my phone for £29!

Result? Much better quality pictures when viewed on a tablet or PC and I feel like I've saved £270 into the bargain!

Familiar mooring but a new walk

Here we are again at Gathurst, where the (unoccupied) boat in front is doing a surprisingly good job of eliminating the road noise.

We arrived here yesterday via Dover Lock then Wigan after receiving a gentle reminder from C&RT to keep moving. We contacted them to explain that I had a local hospital appointment to keep and they kindly removed our "transgression" from our record, which was good of them. To be honest, we have never outstayed the two week limit except over this Christmas and New Year. Our "offence" is to keep returning to Plank Lane so that a check at the start and end of a month might find us in the same place even though we will have moved about in between times.

No matter and no harm done we were happy to move on in this mild spell of weather. We have loved our first winter out of the marina as we almost have the canal system to ourselves. In fact, in the last three days we have only seen one boat on the move, which suits us fine.

As you know we stop here at Gathurst regularly. Adequate shops, good pubs, excellent train access and a selection of walks, it's perfect for our needs. Today, we added a new walk to our list as we discovered Elnup Wood.

This wonderful hawthorn guard of honour preceded the woods

as did a few reminders of Wigan's proud coal mining history 

Beware old mine shafts!

The woods themselves were an absolute delight, if a little bit muddy in places and we will definitely be returning as I spotted a couple of other paths to take in there. Also, plenty to eat if you get hungry!

As we were leaving the woods a pair of robins dropped at our feet, really going at each other hammer and tongs and totally ignoring us. Robins will fight each other to the death over territory so I chased them apart in the hope that both would live to fight another day. That's my bit for world peace taken care of!

Play misty for me

It was a misty morning start today with this view through the hatch.

As we set off there was a distinctly "Scooby Doo" feel, crawling slowly, breaking icy remnants.

I saw my first Jay for ages but was never going to be quick enough to photograph it. Away to our right a ref blew for full time, reminding me of a Bradford v Wigan night game where the fog was so thick that Ian Millward said "Brian Carney could have gone for a burger and I wouldn't have known!"

Ethereal figures emerged from the murk as we made our way to Astley Green

where we shall remain for a couple of days giving the right hand side of the boat a much needed wash and brush up before hitting the services at Butts Bridge.
Finally, it's good to report that we are now getting 4G here. Carry on at this rate and our network coverage will soon be rivalling Albania's!

What did I say about the best laid plans?

As I said yesterday, there were rumours that Peel Holdings were going to push the Vicar's Hall bridge closure back and, sure enough, they have emailed their boat owners to say the canal will now be closed from February 13th to an unbelievable June 18th! So yesterday's plan is in the bin and we will probably now do Llangollen first then Skipton after our holiday in France in July. Seriously, how can you plan anything when they move the closure from end of October to mid December to early January then to mid February?

Anyhow, back to today and, as predicted, we are frozen in at the side of Boothstown Marina.

If you look closely you can see that the ice has been broken where a couple of boats have pushed through but that's not an option we would consider. Firstly, it's a noisy, slow process and, secondly, we've only just got here and have nowhere specifically to get to!
Given that today was glorious and tomorrow is forecast to be wet we had a leisurely late breakfast, stocked up on logs then walked to Worsley and back with Charlotte and Frank, a round trip along both sides of the canal of three and a quarter miles.

I must say the little chap was very well behaved and always came back to his mistress when called. Now, if only he would stop digging his way to freedom in his back garden!

Well that's it for today. If tomorrow's rain gets rid of the ice we will be moving again on Saturday.

Here's to 2017

Having spent almost four weeks at Plank Lane (shh, don't tell C&RT) getting pre Christmas, Christmas and New Year out of the way we have moved back to Boothstown to fill up with diesel before the revised, revised, revised bridge closure date of January 9th (though there is a rumour this is being revised!). And what a lovely day to move it was.

The sun did actually offer a modicum of warmth initially but by 2pm I was getting pretty chilly. Elaine was busy inside removing our Christmas decorations and attending to administrative tasks related to our financial empire (i.e. Changing address information with our pension providers) so I was left alone to ponder our short term future. From now on when the weather permits we will be sprucing Lottie up before we head off to Yorkshire hopefully some time in March. There's a good spring clean required and the unremitting battle against rust continues. Plus, looking at the rear hatch doors, a good deal of varnishing is called for also.

Yes, she's a bit tatty at the moment but we WILL turn her around.

We are staying at the Moorings tonight and expect to be frozen in again tomorrow as the clear skies should presage a hard frost. No matter. We have diesel, coal and logs aplenty so bring it on! Also, I'm expecting the gas bottle to run dry now that I've filled the front locker with bags of coal, all of which will have to be lifted out to allow me to change to a new bottle. It always seems to happen this way!

Our plan is to make our leisurely way down to Burscough to see out most if not all of February. We don't have a problem with this winter shuttling but it doesn't make it easy to post new and interesting blog entries. It's even harder when we are static for weeks on end, hence the rather large gap between the last post and this one! Still, not too long now before we can make a break for it with Skipton first on the agenda then possibly Llangollen before we go to France with the family in the summer. Best laid plans and all that!!