Nose to tail at Burscough

It's pretty busy with boats here at Burscough, where we've been since leaving Gathurst on Sunday.

Can you see the mill and chimney in the background? Well, we were moored all the way back there initially. We moved up to the services on Monday and managed afterwards to reverse into this spot just a couple of boat lengths back, opposite the free car park (yes, Wigan Council, FREE car park!). It's a very handy spot with great connectivity and access to all amenities, albeit far from our more rural preference.

Remember last year and my post about the Pennywort that was clogging up the canal around here? Well, the C&RT have done a great job of cutting it back - it has totally disappeared, so credit where it's due. In fact, speaking of cutting, they recently came and cut the grass alone the towpath. It must be done, of course, but the result is this.

Lottie, covered in grass and with filthy, dusty windows. The woman on the boat right in front of us shot out to brush up only for the guys to return with a leaf blower and blow it all back again!

With our trip to France coming up in two weeks we had decided to put Lottie back in Scarisbrick Marina just to be safe. We have booked a four week slot and are due in there next Friday. Ooh, the luxury! All the lights on, immersion heated water, washing machine turned back up to forty degrees C and daytime TV if we wish - we really are spoiling ourselves 😉

It's not all good though. I've had another look at our wood burner and we have a definite problem. Something has collapsed from the flue onto the baffle plate above the firebox and its jammed solid. We have a specialist coming to take a look later and I'm bracing myself for a new chimney as a minimum, possibly a new wood burner too. The current one is a Morso and they retail around £800! I can get a new one for a fraction of that so may ditch the Morso if the repair costs are too much.

The annoying thing is that, if I had the knowledge beforehand, I could have looked after things much better than I have. When we started this life, no one told us anything! We've learned as we went along - fires, engine, stern gear, gearbox, water filtration. I'm an expert now, but it comes at a price! Still, it's a pretty pointless life if you don't accumulate knowledge as you shuffle along.

We have the car here now so will be getting about a bit before we fly away. We are definitely watching Logan in his home game on Sunday. He won his second Opposition Coach MOM last week. He would have had Miners MOM but the coach, rightly, chose someone else. He now has:-

Most Improved Player

Top Tackler (2)

Opposition MOM (2)

MOM (4)

I promised him a superhero replica shirt for every award plus a fiver when he scores (he scored last week, too). At this rate, I'm going to have to go back to work 😉

Finally, I'll finish off with his little brother Wilson. We had him for a while yesterday as we picked the car up and we had our second profound conversation as I took him to the toilet. The first one was a few weeks back wherein I asked him why I had to wipe his bum. He responded in all seriousness that it was because he didn't want to get poo on HIS finger! Yesterday, back in the toilet, he asked me if I had a fat belly because I ate too much food. When I answered in the affirmative he fixed me with a stare and said, "Don't.......eat.......FOOD!" I might have to start work and go on a diet at the same time!