Clive & Melanie Morris - Narrowboat Folkies

Peter and Katie arrived at the Shroppie Fly at lunchtime on Thursday.  They came on board for the guided tour then we headed into the pub for lunch.  It was absolutely great to see them both again, its been ages since the last time, that was when we visited them in Scotland in 2008 before we embarked on our adventure. 

We spent a wonderful afternoon with them back on the boat going through the family tree and chatting then we went to the Lord Combermere in Au...

We made it to Norbury on Friday and managed to get a pump-out and I got all my laundry done too.  This time I didn't have to do a thing - just hand over the two bags of washing and the money - two hours later I collected the two bags now full of washed, dried and folded laundry - wonderful.  Whilst it was being washed we went and had lunch in the pub!  I could get used to that!!

The following day, Saturday, we were up in good time and headed off on the journey...

As it turned out we didn't go anywhere that day, it was just too damn cold, so we decided to stay put for another night.  However the following day dawned reasonably well so we upped sticks and headed off for Market Drayton.  There were three more locks in front of us, being part of the Audlem Flight and after the third one we crossed the border from Cheshire into Shropshire.  A short cruise later we arrived at the next flight of locks, the Adderley Locks.  Once we were th...

We had a brilliant time at the Folk Club on Monday night.  We were the first to arrive but it wasn't long before several people came in carrying instruments of various sorts and a short time later it kicked off.  Having been once before we knew the format and unlike the folk clubs we are used to this is more of an informal free for all!  There is no MC you basically just start playing or singing as soon as somebody else has finished, every now and again you would end up with tw...

Yes I know - its been a while - sorry!  However there really wasn't a lot to tell and the last thing I want to do is bore you all to tears!

We remained in Nantwich right up until the morning of Sunday 7th Feb.  We intended to leave each day but somehow we just didn't. Clive was not feeling very well for a start, he had a bad cold, which naturally turned into "man-flu" and he wasn't feeling up to standing on the back of the boat freezing to death or getting we...

We left our lovely mooring out in the countryside on Wednesday morning and headed for Barbage Junction.  We only had one lock to negotiate - Cholmondestan Lock, which we assume is pronounced Chumston!  It wasn't long after that we spotted the junction up ahead but first of all we had to run the gauntlet between all the moored boats - thank heavens we didn't meet anybody coming the other way!

I am now just slightly stressed and harrassed!  I have just spent the best part of two hours typing out the blog for the last couple of days and at some point in the middle of it the website must have bombed out and I just lost the whole lot and now have to start again - I am not a happy bunny!

So!  We did manage to see a few episodes of NCIS the other night without losing power then it was off to bed.  The following morning we were up bright and early and aft...

Well its been an interesting couple of days to say the least!

Shortly after breakfast yesterday, Jan 21st, we heard a boat coming!  Sure enough it went past us and arrived at the ice and like a knife through butter ploughed through it all with no bother at all!  Mind you it was a trad boat with a big engine!  So, that was that, the ice was broken and there was a channel through it all ready for us - brilliant!  So we quickly got ourselves togged up and se...

Well we have actually moved at last!  Yesterday, Jan 19th, the coalman arrived mid morning and dropped off another two bags of smokeless fuel for the stove and two containers of diesel (40 litres) to bring the fuel tank to a slightly more respectable level.  All we needed now was the pump-out.  We waited and waited and waited!  The man who had bunged up the drain with his rods decided to mend a broken water pipe and seemed to be ignoring the drainage problem altogether.
...

We are still here!  Apologies to all you avid blogees out there for the lack of activity but we actually abandoned ship on Monday, January 11th.  We were unable to fill up with water as the pipes were frozen, we were unable to pump out the loo because the pump-out facility was frozen and we were getting extremely low on diesel with no way of getting to the next filling station!  As we had things to do on terra firma we decided to hire a car for a week to allow things to thaw ou...