Chickened Out

The 'planning committee' met yesterday to discuss cruising options. We had floated ideas of cruising through Manchester towards Liverpool and beyond. However, as we are now firmly in the school holiday period where semi feral city brats are left to their own devices, a trip along the infamous Ashton Canal didn't seem particularly attractive. British Waterways offer a warning to boaters using this stretch of canal to get through in one go, don't stop, lock every boat aperture before you start your journey and don't offer 'lifts' to kids. Do we chance an unpleasant imflammatory encounter or give it a miss? The concensus was, 'Who needs the grief, we can do it another time', so we are now planning to wander back down the Macclesfield seeing the bits we have missed on the way up, turn north onto the Trent and Mersey, the Anderton Boat Lift, onto the River Weaver, the Middlewich Branch, Shroppie and Ellesmere Port before we think about where we need to be for the winter months.