After another very windy day...

All boaters ought to know about Weil's Disease, a water-borne disease caused by bacteria in the urine of rats. It can be fatal to humans if left untreated. It can be contracted by exposure to the bacteria through open wounds, which is why I went on Weil's alert when I fell off the front of the boat two weeks ago. What I didn't report on the blog then was that I somehow managed to dig quite a sizeable hole in my shin when I fell, and I've been waiting to see if I develop any Weil's symptoms, which are very much like flu.

Weil's takes up to two weeks to incubate. Any illness which is flu-like needs to be taken to a doctor, GP or hospital, for treatment with a particular antibiotic. There is a problem with this, though, because Weil's is rare. After all, it's a very small proportion of the population who are regularly exposed to rat urine, and who, therefore, live with the risk of contracting it. There are many doctors who have never and will never see a single case of it in their entire career.

Because of this, Grace and I have a document with wording taken from the website of the Historic Narrow Boat Club.

Should we ever experience the symptoms, we would go with some haste to see a doctor, and take this with us. That should guarantee us the correct treatment with appropriate urgency.

I'm glad to say it looks like I won't be taking this to a doctor this time around (though officially I still have a week to show symptoms). And the hole in my shin's healing pretty well, too.

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When we bought Kantara, there was a vacuum cleaner on board. It died very soon after we started using it, so we went in search of another one suitable for use on a narrowboat. The one we purchased did the job well, but, small as it was on the domestic scale of things, it turned out to be still too big for the narrow spaces of the boat cabin. Consequently, we found ourselves using it rather less than we ought to have been.

While we were in Liverpool, we addressed the problem - nearly five years on! Grace had investigated on the web the relatively new generation of vacs made by Dyson, and seen regularly on TV.

picture - www.johnlewis.com

We went to Liverpool's John Lewis, close to the docks, to see and try one. We tested several models, asked lots of questions of the saleswoman, ummed and ahhed, and bought one. It's perfect for the boat! Cordless, small, easy to store, light, easy to use, and very effective. It's no chore to use it for just five minutes daily to keep carpets and hard floors free of the bits and pieces they get scattered with after a day's cruise.

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It's been another very windy day. I was awoken at 6:00am by the boat rocking in the wind, and knocking on rocks below water level. It rained first thing, and then spent a couple of hours cloudy and threatening. But that cleared, and the sun came out. But the wind just kept on. It really made driving the boat difficult at times, though not nearly as difficult for us as for the GRP boats we saw out, zig-zagging about the canal like drunken geese.

For the first time ever, we ran our water-tank empty today, just before we left our mooring this morning. Fortunately, the tap was vacant at Burscough Wharf, and we filled up there. We want to replace an empty Calor Gas bottle soon, too, and top up our diesel - neither because we're desperate, but so that we avoid getting to that point!

We finished the day's cruise mid-afternoon back at Hoscar, the Ring o' Bells mooring we were at two weeks ago. And finally, the wind died down, and the afternoon was hot and bright.

We've had conformation that Plank Lane swing bridge will be manned at 2:00pm on Wednesday - they're only providing that service every other day - so we're aiming for that window of time. Tomorrow, we move on to Crooke.

Dry and windy

I'm not sure if it was the wind rocking the boat, or the sound of it in the tall, dense reeds opposite us that woke me this morning, but, either way, it was blowing a gale. The water was very choppy, and the coots bobbed about on it like corks. But it was very sunny, and we set off into the headwind towards Hoscar.

It's Sunday. A very warm, sunny Sunday. So the nation's anglers were out in force, with men sitting five metres or so apart right along long stretches of bank. Most were friendly, and wished us a good morning, but some obviously resented our passage through their fishing grounds. The canals were cut for them, of course, and we are but intruders.

Today was the day of swing-bridges; manual, automatic, semi-automatic (“I'll do the traffic lights, the alarm and the road barriers, and you push the bridge open and closed”, or, “You do the barriers, I'll do the bridge. Too bad about the traffic lights and alarm.”)

The wind, which blew strongly from the towing-path side all of the time, and gusted much stronger, making it hard for Grace to pull Kantara alongside for me to get off and on at each swing-bridge. It was equally difficult for us to moor in Maghull, to go and buy milk. It was impossible to moor for lunch three miles further on, and almost impossible a bit later, where a row of trees formed a bit of a wind-break sufficient for us eventually to tie the boat up.

We ate our lunch, a strange but delicious concoction of smoked mackerel, fried tomatoes and left-over potatoes, poached egg, and lettuce. Something of a clearing-up of bits and pieces in the fridge! Then we looked out at the wind, and decided we weren't going to face it again today. We'll stay here for the night, then move on to Hoscar and the farm shop tomorrow. A stop at Burscough is imperative since we have little water in the tank.

As I write, the wind is blowing harder than ever, and the sound of it in the trees is quite alarming. But the wind-break trees are doing the job well, and Kantara's hardly swaying. Here's hoping the wind doesn't swing around during the night!

That is some shop!

Monday
The village of Hoscar seems to have very little apart from two pubs, one of which is now closes for some time, and a railway station. And it has several farms, one of which has the shop that's the reason for us having stopped here. We walked out to it this morning, to see what they have to offer, to make sure they were worth waiting for till tomorrow. There were several signs up outside the closed shop, suggesting all sorts of food we may well buy tomorrow, before carrying on the next short step towards Liverpool. It looked promising.

photo - www.taylorsfarmshop.co.uk

The moorings here confused us a bit when we arrived yesterday. We tied up not far from a sign welcoming us to the 24-hour visitor moorings. In front of us is a yoghurt pot (aka small GRP cruiser) and several narrowboats, all of which bear permanent moorer's licenses. Part-way up this line of craft is another CRT sign announcing that these are, indeed, permanent moorings. Neither of the two notices, however, says how much of the bank's length they refer to. Nowhere does it say visitors stop/permanents start here.

Anyway, we didn't want to outstay our 24-hour welcome at the visitors' bit, so this afternoon we moved a mere 250 yards to a spot immediately after the last of the permanent moorers. Where I disturbed a wasps' nest whilst mooring Kantara. Dozens of the things came at me, obviously pretty angry. It must have been an amusing sight, me running up and down, flapping my arms around me, trying to shoo the wasps away. I was lucky to be stung just once, on the side of my hand. Fortunately for me, I've never reacted badly to insect stings or bites, and this one came to nothing after the initial pain.

We towed the boat a few yards away from the offended nest, and moored again.

Tuesday
I had a Facebook message this morning from Paul. Paul's a friend and ex-colleague from my last school. He's the first person to speak in “Life with our feet under water”.

"I like the line in your blog there's a farm shop close by that we want to visit. But it's Sunday today, and they're not open until Tuesday. So we wait. People don't wait that long for the Harrod's sale!"

And today we stopped waiting, and went to the shop. And it was so worth the wait! 

Taylor's Farm Shop is much bigger than I expected. Looking in through the glass door yesterday gave me no clue as to its size. Most of it was hidden from view. It has pretty much all of the food and drink that you could need. There's a delicatessen counter, a fresh meat counter, fruit and vegetables, bread, cakes and biscuits, wines and ales, soft drinks, dairy products, and freezers and chillers full of packaged sausages, burgers and other meats. They even sell Meal Deals from their stock, at less than £3! Much of the food is produced on the farm, much of the rest is locally sourced, and the whole spread speaks quality. Prices are very good. Such is the range of goods, and the popularity of the shop, that there are around a dozen staff working in the shop. There must be others behind the scenes, preparing the food.

We were amazed. We were delighted. We bought lots, and we'll make sure we stop here on our journey from Liverpool. Boaters, it's a 10-minute walk from the canal. Take lots of bags, because you'll buy more than you went for!

We carried on up the canal, expecting to do a massive nine miles today. Almost immediately, we passed the junction with the Rufford Arm of the canal.

We knew nothing of this canal until last May. We drove out from Yelvertoft to Darwen in Lancashire, to see Said the Maiden supporting Fairport Convention. To make the most of the trip, we stayed on for three days, on one of which we visited Old Rufford Hall, alongside which, we were surprised to see, flows a narrow canal. Later, we learned that this is the Rufford Arm, which forms an important link to the Leeds and Liverpool with the Lancaster Canal, via the Ribble Link. We sailed past it today. We do have a bit of time on our hands, but not enough for a decent exploration of the Rufford.

Old mill converted to apartments

We stopped at Burscough Wharf for services. (How do you pronounce “Burscough”? Does it rhyme with cough, through, though, or tough? Or something else I haven't thought of?) The wharf is much smaller than Wigan's, but so much nicer, and, well, alive!

There are shops, cafés and restaurants all very nicely created in the old canal buildings. Live music wafted out of a bar, shoppers perused the shops, a young couple carried a white-painted wardrobe out of an "Emporium", people sat and drank coffee in a pleasant courtyard, and a wool shop sold teas to its patrons. It was alive and purposeful. Wigan missed the trick somehow.

The countryside now takes on a rather different character, The land has become very flat, the woodland has all but disappeared, and there are stretches where the canal is very straight, suggesting to us the drains of the Middle Levels. It's all very beautiful in a stark sort of way.

We moored well short of our expected destination. We'd left Hoscar later than we'd anticipated, and our progress had been slowed by three swing-bridges, and a lot of moored boats (for which it is expected that one slows down). The bank here is sloping, the edge is uneven, and the boats stands out from it a foot or so. Which left me a convenient space to fall into as I stepped backwards off the gunnel onto a bank that simply wasn't there.

Splash!

Our overnight mooring, Bridge 26 behind us, Halsall to our right.