Making our way off the Bridgewater Canal

 Moving on from Pennington Flash on Thursday morning, we hurried through Leigh, which is less beautiful. Worsley is a colourful, characterful corner of the Bridgewater Canal, and almost the only part of it Grace seems to like! We stopped to get milk here. There is one shop. A newsagent, though it does sell a small range of other stuff. Including milk. Very small bottles only!

Just across the canal from where we moored is a boatyard advertising that it sells Calor Gas. We drove across, and I bought a bottle, swapping it out with the empty one from the deck of a barge 50 yards further on, with our prow sticking out rather obstructively into the centre of the canal. It was another quiet day on the water, though, so we inconvenienced no-one. We only met four boats in the whole day.

The result of too-late a cuppa?

Not easy to see, but this juvenile heron has a rat in its beak!

We were on the look-out for a Bridgewater Company employee noting our presence on their waters, and today we spotted him, photographing us with his phone and tapping in details – our name and number, no doubt. Would someone now flag us down and demand payment for having returned to their canal before the required 28 days had passed, or would my email conversations with Head Office have persuaded them not to press charges?

We passed again over the Manchester Ship Canal, mighty but shipless. How often do they have to swing this bridge to allow the passage of big ships? we wondered.

The Trafford (shopping) Centre

The canal through Trafford Park was a potential stopping-place for us, but as we cruised along, it became clear that is was less desirable than we had hoped. The concrete canal edge and footpath was a major part of the problem. How would we actually tie up the boat? We moved on, bearing right off the Leigh Branch at the junction with the Manchester junction, and down through Stretford and the sprawl of Sale. 

Beyond Sale, the canal winds out into lovely, welcome countryside, and we moored for the night at a beautiful spot in Dunham Massey.

Still no problem from the Bridgewater Company.

A hot day's cruise to Worsley

And it was hot – very hot! It hadn't been as sticky a night as we had expected, and the day started dull, but the heat was beginning to build and the skies had cleared by the time we left Lymm. As we slipped out into the countryside again, we realized that being on the water, where the air is cooler even without the breeze we had, was going to be the best thing for us if the temperatures were going to rise as had been forecast.

Hot weather's good for nature's scents, and privet was dominant today, with meadowsweet and rose adding their accompaniments from time to time. Buttercups and clover splashed over the towing-path bank, and countless other flowers whose names I know not, but which made the day brighter still.

We parted company with the railway for much of the time, losing it altogether after it cut across Sale on its way east, so our journey was all the more peaceful for that. There were very few boats on the move. We had the canal to ourselves for long spells of time.

Little Bollington was quickly passed. It is very little! Then into the Dunhams, with the stately Dunham Massey Hall on our right.

And then into the sprawl of Sale. I had been given a bad impression of Sale; we found it to be largely unjustified. It was the now familiar scene of expensive homes on both sides of the canal, gardens, private moorings on the berm bank. We moored for lunch in such a place on the southern tip of he town, though here was no different from yesterday's experience of the Bridgewater in presenting us with a stone-edged bank with neither armco nor mooring rings, and a grass verge so stony that hammering in pins was something of a challenge.

The clean, tidy appearance of Sale's canal faded as we headed north, and we arrived in parts in which we'd not choose to moor overnight. The expensive properties had gone, and graffiti adorned bridges, walls and fences. Grimy industrial sites further blighted the picture, and litter was commonplace. This got worse still as we moved on into the smaller town of Stretford.

All the while, the canal had been uncommonly straight, and this continued after we'd veered left onto the Leigh Branch, up through the huge Trafford Park Industrial Estate to the Barton Swing Aqueduct.

This is a straight canal!

Barton Swing Aqueduct, this 19th century engineering marvel, is a 235 foot long crossing over the mighty Manchester Ship Canal, which swings at 90° on a central pivot to allow tall ships to pass. Sadly, we didn't get to see that happen.

Approaching the aqueduct

I've learned recently that the Bridgewater Canal is considered to be the forerunner of all modern canals. Engineered by James Brindley, opened in 1765, it follows a single contour for its entire length, and has, therefore, no locks. It crosses the River Irwell on a stone aqueduct, a pioneering concept in its day. And so it became the inspiration of many of the canals which followed it. “Indeed,” says the Nicholson Guide, “its wide gauge, lock-free course and frequent use of aqueducts makes many later canals look retrograde.”

Passing through a very new-looking pair of floodgates south of Worsley, and seeing several other boats moored on both sides alongside parkland, we tied up for the night.

The heat didn't really let up. The fridge ran for hours without ceasing, and the battery voltage had dropped quite low by bed-time. But it was a beautiful night, the western sky multi-coloured until very late, opposite a full, red moon.

A weekend in sunny Lancashire (real time)

Some weeks ago, we planned to drive to Lancashire, to see Said the Maiden opening for folk-rock legends Fairport Convention at the Darwen Library Theatre . And, thinking we could make a long weekend of it, we booked into an hotel in nearby Preston for three nights. Shortly after we'd done that, Jess told us that The Company of Players were playing a gig at the Settle Victoria Hall, also close by, on the following night. What a fortunate coincidence! We didn't tell Jess our intentions. It was all hush-hush.

So we drove the two hours to Preston last Thursday, and then on to Darwen for 7:00pm. And what an evening that was. The Maidens did a brilliant set, performing amazingly, and totally captivating an audience to whom they were previously strangers. Lots of CDs were sold that evening! Fairport weren't bad, either.

Actually, I was happily surprised. I've never been a great fan, hearing only their biggest hits over the past five decades, and never being tempted to listen to more of their work. I was bowled over on Thursday. Old they may be - and they kept telling us they are! - but they've not lost their talent in the slightest. They were brilliant. It was a great evening.

The sad thing was that Victoria Hall had hardly promoted the Company of Players' gig. Grace and I had bought the very first two tickets, and they'd managed ten more. It seems they'd tweeted about the event once. They cancelled it. The Company had booked accommodation, all ten of them. And the venue had let them down badly. So we didn't get to hear them on the Friday. A great disappointment for the Company, and for those of us with tickets.

But Grace and I still had three days in which to have fun, and Friday we started to explore. We drove out to Gawthorpe Hall.

We drove across the hills and dales of the Forest of Bowland.

And we stopped at the unexpectedly charming town of Clitheroe for lunch and sightseeing.

It was a very full and varied day. The sun shone for us, too!

On Saturday, we drove to Thornton Cleveley, on the coast. Grace had, just the previous week, bought a flute on the web, arranged to collect it while we were here in Lancashire. Another happy coincidence. A visit to the beach, then, was a must. We hadn't seen and smelled the sea for years.

The beach wasn't far from Blackpool, and we'd been encouraged by Twitter friend Andy Claret to pay Blackpool a visit.

So we drove into Blackpool. And we kept on driving! We'd had a taste of the beaches here, and loved it, but the town, the seafront, the crowds just aren't our cup of tea, too. Nor Andy's, either. I seem to remember him saying something like how lovely it is on the beach, facing the sea!

Continuing along the coast road, stopping along the way for photos, we arrived at Formby Point, a stretch of coast owned by the National Trust. It's another fabulous beach. And, it being a sunny Saturday afternoon, it was fabulously full of people, too! I'd been misled by the National Trust app, which shows a photo that must have been taken at 6:00 one morning.

But it was getting late, and lots of people were going home, so there was room for us!

And somewhere in there, we still had time for a visit to Rufford Old Hall - "A fine Tudor building, the home for stories of romance, wealth and 500 years of Hesketh family history." (National Trust)

Yesterday, we returned home to Kantara. But not without first a visit to Tatton Park (which was overflowing with visitors to a special event, so we didn't even park), and Dunham Massey, which was excellent. "A garden for all seasons, an ancient deer park and a house filled with treasures and stories" (National Trust)