Church Minshull to Wheelock - Monday & Tuesday - 7 locks, 10 miles, 7 hours

MONDAY

We left Church Minshull for a short cruise to the outskirts of Middlewich.

It was a grey morning with a bit of drizzle.  The cruise was pretty uneventful, and we were moored up in time to have a look at Middlewich - it didn't take long!  Not much to the town at all.

It was getting dark when we got back, so it was time to get the log burner going, which George was most appreciative of!

TUESDAY

It was a really cold start, but the sun was shining, a proper winter morning.  We had heard it rain a couple of times in the night, some of it had obviously been mixed with hail or sleet.

We only had a short distance and two locks to the end of the Shropshire Union, we would then be turning onto the Trent & Mersey.  Just before we got to the end we passed this very unusual looking boat, it looks wide in this photo but was the same width as a narrowboat.

We had a bit if trouble at the second lock, one of the slackers wouldn't go all the way down - it needed a bit of brute force and I hate to say it a man :-).

Then that was it, we were on the Trent and Mersey, it was a real tight right turn, but Mr Brown got By The Way round it with no problem.

As we travelled on the sun really came out, it was still cold but really lovely and bright a nice change from all the grey we have had in the last couple of weeks.

Looks like it will be a cold one tonight, so the log burner is up and running and will be loaded with coal before we go to bed, it's really toastie and cosy.  I think we will be investing in a log burner when we return to dry land.

(EH 425)