Wash out day at Lymm and frustrating day!!

Where Geoff reached Friday and we should have been yesterday

On Saturday we had a plan!   Fatal......we had decided to fore go our usual weekend layover as we wanted to get to the Weaver, so Saturday was planned to move up to the Thelwell viaduct and do the walk to the Manchester Ship Canal and we hoped the ferry ride across.   So the plan was shop early, have our usual Saturday cooked breakfast and gently potter off about 11 as the ferry was supposed to run between 12 and 2pm.

The first fly in the ointment was that I bought more shopping than I intended and had trouble carrying it back to Petroc despite taking the wheelie with me.   I had to call Geoff to come and rescue me......by a sheer fluke his phone was on!   By the time I had done our breakfast I was ready to go back to bed.   Since the final straw was the rain ( Not Forecast)I did just that and we abandoned the day's plan.

Today, Sunday, dawned still dull but at least dry so we decided to set off.   Geoff went for the Sunday papers first and had a long wait whilst they were unpacked.   We had to stop after a short while as we had something round the prop....Geoff not pleased.    We then caught up with a very slow boat and we were hardly speeding.   Despite there being many wide places he could have let us through, he declined to do so so a very frustrated Geoff on the tiller.  We also had the odd shower of rain, again not forecast.   Just short of the turn off to the Runcorn Arm which we thought we would explore, we had to stop for another forage down the weed hatch.   This time there were more problems as Geoff was unable to secure it back in place properly......much muttering.   After some considerable time he managed to secure it but all was not 100% so we called in at the boatyard at the junction to see if anyone could have a look.  A very obliging young man diagnosed the problem almost immediately.  Part of the thread on the bolt is stripped, so we need a new bit.  They can fix on Tuesday.  He managed to secure in place and we will be OK so long as we don't pick anything else up which necessitates Geoff taking it off again.   So fingers crossed we set off for the Runcorn arm and have moored about a mile down.  We will do the intended trip up to the end tomorrow and return to the yard to be mended on Tuesday.

Despite the frustrating day we should be thankful as the picture below shows what John and Rosi were sitting in for several hours on Friday on the M6

Total distance:11.63 miles  

Elapsed time:4h45m32s 

Locks:0

Bridges:41 
Average speed:2.48 mph (2.48 lock/mph)