We decided to play at being tourists today and took the train in to Manchester. It was a mile walk along the disused railway track to Middlewood Station with trains once an hour.

We wanted to visit the Museum of Science and Industry, having visited some eight years ago on a hire boat while doing the Cheshire Ring. We walked along the canal and saw this fine horse sculpture tucked away.

Their show stopper item is the Stevenson’s Rocket, it was quite incredible to see such an old steam train (built in 1829), and how impressed folk were with it travelling 35mph – faster than a horse!

They also had a textile section, and demonstrations of the old working looms turning the raw cotton into reels of cotton. This is only a small sample of the number of machines that would have been in operation in a fully working mill, the noise must have been deafening.

Toby took a shine to ‘Baby’, a replica of the world’s first electronic stored-program computer built in Manchester in 1948. Quite a size when the phone in our pocket is more powerful.

We also had a look round the section with all the planes, and cars.

We had a go at the virtual reality experience, and a space experience hosted by Tim Peake. The views were from the International Space Station and then a landing in the Soyuz capsule. It’s the first time I’ve done anything like that, I’m sure we looked like a pair of muppets to those walking by, it was quite incredible to see the picture change as you turned your head, it made me feel quite queasy, there was no way I was going on the Red Arrows Experience after that!

Toby picked up a new coat having ripped beyond repair his much loved fleece, he also picked up a new pair of sandals. What a shame he didn’t by a new pair of boots, having discovered a hole in the sole on the way back to the boat! I fear we may have achy legs tomorrow as we did a lot of walking, thankfully there are no locks ahead!

Back to my beany self today – yey!! Another dry lock free day, so we we enjoyed the scenery. I really like this picture of the Heron, he looks old and weathered with his long beard and grey coat keeping him warm – Toby was more impressed by the crocodile than I was.

We soon reached Bollington and stopped off at the services (not quite the same set up at as motorway services!) refuelling (118 litres) and a new gas bottle. I’ve been reading the log book from three years ago when Romy, Peter, Pat and Judith did a similar journey, the entry for the 14.06.16 stated that Bollington Wharf services were closed as the husband was in hospital. I asked the lady about it and she said he was very ill after falling off a fork lift truck and ended up selling the business to the current owners.

We passed Clarence Mill which brought back memories of a trip by hire boat many years ago, we stopped and went in to the cafe, and had to ask what a barm cake was – a soft roll to us southerners.

We moored up at Higher Poynton and took a walk along the Middlewood Way which is a disused railway. The photo below shows the old platform and what would have been the railway line. I wasn’t so sure the footpath would lead us here, Toby’s words to me ‘trust your navigator’, he was right!

We spotted some lovely flowers on the way, I particularly like the petals of the pink wild rose, they leave lovely heart shaped confetti on the path.

Our circular walk took us on a not so well used footpath and then through a farm, the donkeys looked like mirror images of each other – I wonder if they’d fallen out?

A half way stop at the local pub, I asked Toby if he still wanted to stop, his response ‘I’ve been saving my poo for this pub’!!!

It’s very rare, in fact it may even be a first, that we started and finished on the same guide book page, and only 1.5 hours cruising today.

I wasn’t feeling too great, I think it was the after effects from my treatment and the rushing/stressing/worrying about getting back. We had a later than usual cast off at 10am. No locks today and only one swing bridge, it took me an age to figure out that I needed to pull up the oval white pully thing, it’s only when I walked round to say to Toby I couldn’t figure it out, that I saw the instructions!

The scenery is really changing as we approach the Peak Forest canal, how could you ever tire of this view?

As the towpath switches sides, the bridges have a wonderful curve, this was to allow the working boats to walk their horses up and over the bridge to the other side.

We stopped at Macclesfield opposite the Hovis Mill; for many years it was still owned by Hovis, used as a print works for their packaging and publicity material. Back in 1998 it was converted into apartments – what a fab place to live. Toby went hunting at the chandlers for new pipe fenders – not too fat, and ones with a loop at the top rather than a hole at the bottom – sadly only the fat ones were in stock. I made some more apple, sultana and ginger flapjacks for Toby’s smoko break.

It continued to rain on and off, and I still wasn’t feeling great, so we decided to stay put. I fell asleep and Toby worked on his canal buddy app, played some games and helped rescue a boat trying to moor up in front off us who were struggling in the wind.

The day started off overcast, and it wasn’t long before the rain began so it was on with the waterproofs.

Luckily the rain didn’t last long, so whilst I was in a lock I made the most of the free fresh water to clean off some bird mess on the side of the boat. We thought the stairs up the off-side of the lock looked rather tricky to negotiate, so didn’t try any fancy tricks with them!

Working single locks is so much easier than doubles. We ended up with Sarah walking on to the lock ahead and leaving me to close the paddles and top gates after driving Oliver out. This worked very well and we made good progress. Some cows in a neighbouring field looked on rather bemused, I think the brown one had a bit of an itch and was giving itself a good old scratch.

As we work our way towards the Peak Forest canal, the hills are getting more impressive. The countryside around here is really lovely, and very lush and green (no surprise with all the rain!)

We stopped off at Bosley lock services to do a self pump-out, which wsa down a little side arm off the main canal. We had to reverse in, and it was rather shallow. We picked up something on the prop, which later turned out to be an old cargo strap (metal buckle included). It had made a bit of a racket banging about, but after some reverse I thought we’d got rid of it. Hindsight suggests all I’d done was wrap it around a bit tighter! That makes it three in a row for finding something down the hatch.

We were thinking to moor at Oakgrove but the road was a bit noisy, so we moved a little further on to a nice spot with some woods between us and the road. After mooring up, I opened the hatch doors and found some nice flowers to greet us through the hatchway. Bonus points if you can tell us what it is.

This evening I’ll be watching the football (Champions Leage final), and Sarah’s planning to watch The Great British Bake Off: The Professionals. Sorted!