Oh boy! What a day!!

Firstly the weather was fabulous! The sun shone all day and got positively hot at times. The scenery was incredible as we wound our way between rolling hills and quint villages like this

....and that's when things started to go wrong! Just as we were waiting to pull out the mooring pins a string of boats rounded the corner. Not wishing to be rude, I waited for them to pass, and waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually they passed us and I made cheery conversation about the weather through gritted teeth as it was clear that not only were they going excruciatingly slowly, they were bridge hoppers on the move with the 2nd boat even towing it's garden shed!

The continued on tick-over with me having to pull into reverse at every bridge as the steerer performed a lively 'back deck dance' attempting to see over his array of logs and flowers all over the roof. After a couple of hours of this, my father went off down the towpath and politely asked if we might pass at some point when convenient. "Wot, aint we going fast enough for yer?" came the Neanderthal reply. My father commented that it was a little slow for us and that we wanted to get through the Bosley lock flight today, (we were over 5 miles from the flight at this point!) "So do we" he replied and turned away from my father and ignored him. I picked my father back up and we continued following his 'shed' that was swaying back and forth across the cut. Here they are just in case anyone has the misfortune to ever meet them.

And by the way - both boats were travelling in convoy at the same speed with frequent yells between the millions of teenage kids that clambered over each boat.

Then the unthinkable happened! Amidst much revving and water sploshing, we realised they were grinding to a halt. I closed the gap as we looked to see what was happening and saw a swing bridge ahead. They set off crew who dutifully opened the swing bridge to let their 3 boats through, (2 if you don't count the shed!) and then this....

Look carefully! Yes - you see correctly. The 2 giggling teenage girls swung the bridge shut behind them narrowly missing the front of Khayamanzi and I just managed to snap them running giggling back to their boat as they saw me reverse hard and my father jump off the back to go and open it again!

I am getting more and more disheartened at the pond life creeping on to our canals and I have had the most serious discussions ever this holiday about selling up and moving back to a house - watch this space.

We continued on tickover keeping our mouths shut, (except a cheeky 'thank you' called out by me to the girls!) until we got to the start of Bosley Locks.

Lock 1 completed and we saw them moored up waiting at the next lock. "You're not going any further" says Mr. BW man - "Lock 5 has come off its hinges and it will be a couple of hours to get it sorted" - Great, there we were stuck in a short pound with a bunch of single celled organisms that would challenge even the mighty Bones and who had by this time, spilled out the entire contents of shed and boat onto the bank, found some chairs and water pistols so that the 'adults' could sit on the chairs whilst the teenage kids ran up and down screaming, shouting and squirting each other. We, however dodged the wasps that had been somewhat angered by the fact that the boat behind drove his pin into their nest! 2 hours passed and we were finally able to continue. The backup of boats enabled a good distance to be put between us and our new found waterway 'friends' and we eventually got out the locks with much fun and camaraderie between us and the rest of the boaters behind whilst strategically being 'busy' whenever we found ourselves coming up behind the 'shed pullers'. We moored up in a lovely little spot at 7.00pm having travelled one of the shortest distances of the whole trip in one of the longest times!

Ah well, tomorrow - Harecastle and Westport Lakes, drop off father who returns home and then onwards Brinklow Bound on my tod!