Queens knees and chicken.

In the morning, bright and early, fairly early, we departed.  Last thing before leaving was to walk the few yards to the  water point and fill two saucepans, the kettle and our five litre mini Gerry can.  We weren't desperate for water yet but wanted to spend a day or two on the lovely Middlewich Arm.  The next water point is at the other end of the Arm at Barbridge

A boat or three went past, we followed along.  Now Middlewich has a tiny look of a rundown town, post Covid a lot of towns do, but it looks tired.  So I was very pleasantly surprised to see some gorgeous properties along the canal here.  I felt I could retire to Middlewich...

On reaching the lock there was a boat waiting on the lock landing.  The helm of this waiting boat said he'd been waiting ages and there was a problem.

I went forward to help, it turned out to be slightly bad news in that an unseen object was blocking the bottom gate.  There was a boat in the lock unable to exit because the gates wouldn't fully open.  Lots of crews around and they had already refilled the lock and emptied the lock to try to WHOOSH the object out.  

Now this lock was the site of the major breach  HERE   go open that link to see the truly shocking photos and I was told that with the breach in mind that CART  have put stoppers on the bottom gate paddles to prevent them from being fully opened.  Now I don't know if that is true or not but the lock did empty quite slowly.  

If anyone does know the exact reason for stoppers on the gate paddles I would like to know.

When the lock did fully empty about four of us wiggled and waggled the gate and finally did manage to open it.  By this time a large queue had built up waiting to come down...

I couldn't help wondering if the object might relocate to the underside of the gate again.

three boats waiting...

Oh and a few more.

Now these following few photos are for Marilyn a boater who resides in Wellington NZ.  Ordinarily Marilyn and her David enjoy a nice NZ summer then later arrive in the UK for an English summer aboard NB Waka Huia    HERE         

So if you care to glance at her blog you will see spring blossom in flower looking magnificent, but mostly they have departed these shores before the autumn colours appear.

Marilyn, they colours are a bit late this year, hardly any yellowing of leaves that we have seen so far...

I wanted to capture the blue of the skies here.

These Elderberries looked wonderful in the sun, some of my favourite colours.

We moored up a short way on from the lock, with a wide tow path and a hedge behind as protection from the slight breeze.

Gorgeous, and a nice view.

A very relaxing afternoon was spent in the sparsely occupied moorings but then a boat arrived and pulled in, he moored up right in front of us.  I was a bit miffed as there was plenty of space and not much traffic.  But I suppose we have always moored up bumper to bumper in honey pot moorings in the height of the season so serve me right. 

I wish it was that warm today, I say that whilst blogging with a rug over my knees like the Queen has.

Supper was Chicken parmigiana with green veg and peach surprise.  I just love peaches and prefer them to strawberries.