Forty Shades of Green

Following my Mum's funeral I've wanted to spend some time with my Dad to help him begin to come to terms with things. So last week we spent 3 days staying with our very good friends Dan & Hilly Fletcher & family. We did a bit of walking & plenty of talking & enjoyed good food & good company.

This week Dad wanted to return to Ireland to spend time with family & friends in familiar surroundings. So on Monday we caught the ferry over to Dublin from Holyhead leaving Ann Marie to do all the hard work of loading Alton & doing lots of road deliveries & other jobs, THANKS AM I owe you!

We stayed with Auntie Patsy in Killevy near Newry at the foot of Slieve Gullion. This is a wonderful part of the world with great memories for our family & we were made very welcome by the McCarthy Clan who really helped lift our Spirits. We had some good chats & some quiet time to reflect. We visited Mums friends & family and we were made so welcome. We also had a day in Belfast visiting the Harland & Woolf Shipyard (they were amazed when I said. I owned a H&W vessel!) and also had a lunch & a pint in the wonderful Crown Bar.

Today I climbed Slieve Gullion 1880ft in the mist with Dermutt & his dog Buddy unfortunately we didn't get to see much of the amazing view of "Forty Shaded of Green" that I remember from my childhood days. After saying our farewells we managed to get a bite of lunch & a pint of porter in Temple Bar before heading to the docks.

We're now on the ferry back home & hopefully Dad will cope over the next few months getting back into some routine.

We're out delivering with Alton this weekend (Ann Marie has everything loaded & ship shape in my absence), so tomorrow were setting off from Oakgrove (Br49 on the Macc) heading north through Macclesfield, Bollington, Poynton & Marple. Then on Sunday onto the Upper Peak Forest Canal (now that the Strines Aqueduct Stoppage is complete) to Bugsworth & Whaley Bridge.

RIP Eleanor McGuigan

It is with great sadness that I have to say that my Mum passed away yesterday 11th February. She had not been well for the last few weeks but her death was still a great shock to us all. Mum was always the linchpin of our family with a heart of gold & would talk to anyone. Her passion was nursing & she worked for 52 years, in hospitals on the Wirral & Liverpool. She loved her work & her family, they were her world. When my terminally ill sister Aileen suffered a stroke last August it hit all the family hard. Aileen came home to my parents and we worked as a family to care for her, but in the end we couldn't cope with her needs & she went into a local care home in November. Mum felt she had failed Aileen & sank into a deep depression, she battled through Christmas to make it a special time for us all. In the New Year she became increasingly ill & run down, getting weaker & weaker. Despite many visits to the doctor nothing was diagnosed, so her sudden death yesterday morning was such a shock to our whole family. We will miss her so much she was a wonderful Mum & Granny.

Obviously we haven't operated Alton this weekend as we've been with the family on the Wirral. Our plans are to head home Monday evening and then run Alton on the Macc from Fools Nook to Marple Tuesday & Wednesday 14th/15th February. We've decided to cancel our Cheshire run with Alton & will instead cover these deliveries by road to allow us to spend more time with the family & help with arrangements.

Finally a big thank you for all the kind words in texts, emails & phone calls, it has meant so much to us.

Wintery Weather

Well Winter has finally arrived over our last couple of runs and trade has certainly picked up, which is good news for us! Alton has been doing quite a bit of ice breaking and Bill & Ginney on Wilver captured a few good photos's showing "before, during & after" which they have posted on their blog http://moblog.net/view/962720/the-show-must-go-on?ac=1 .

The ice has generally only been an inch or two thick at most so hasn't really given us as much trouble as the last 2 years (so far!) and in fact it's been quite good to have some real fresh winter weather instead of rain.

Alton Serving Green King at Lyme Green

Ice at Dawn

Near Disley

Alton Tied up at Bugsworth Basin

Serving Woton Near Danes Moss

Finally here's a little clip of Alton icebreaking on the Macc.

Wow what a Weekend!

Alton Running Light on our Return

Just a quick update. It's been a manic 4 days for us on our last 4 day run on the Macc & Peak Forest Canals. Everyone had obviously been listening to the weather forecasts so after such a mild winter on the whole it was just great for us to be so busy again. We stopped at Bugsworth late on Sunday eve & had a pleasant catch up with George & Irene Boyle at the Dog & Partridge then back at the Navvy at Bugsworth.
Whilst the Weather has been cold, we have still had some beautiful days & we've really enjoyed the boating as well as all the usual banter with customers. We've broken ice most of the way back down the Macc today & have sold out of diesel & most brands of solid fuels. So tonight Brian has been back out in the van delivering more supplies to customers. Bring on the Winter :-)

Petter Pampering

Before Christmas we decided it was time to give Altons Petter PD2 engine a bit more care than just its usual oil change. So we arranged to call up and see Charles Mills at Vintage Marine Diesels at Poynton. Charles soon set about stripping off the engine covers & shrouding and ducting.

The Cowling Stripped Off

The removal of the fan and pulleys went OK but back at the workshop, pressing out the bearings was a bit more difficult and in the end 2 pulleys broke, so Charles had to get busy machining up a couple of new ones.

Fan & Pulleys Removed

Cleaned up Fan with New Pulley

After a clean & degrease Charles set too with the re-assembly, including new filters.

New Filters & Pulley

Charles Re-assembling

With a sump full of fresh Morris oil the Petter soon fired up sounding well with good oil pressure.

Healthy Oil Pressure

Working over 2000 hrs a year we hope the Petter will continue to give us good service (touch wood) now that it's had some TLC. We certainly know lots of boaters love to here that beat of that exhaust note ;-)

New Year 2012

Happy New Year! Well it's been a good & busy start to the 2012 so I'll try & catch up with our news on the blog over the next few days. Our first coal run was over the New Year period & we celebrated by tying up at Disley and were joined by my brother Mike and George & Irene Boyle for a very pleasant evening at the White Lion with a fine selection of real ales. We got back to the boat at 3am so we treated ourselves to a lie in until our first customer of the day Annie on Brave New World  came alongside about 9am and roused us from our slumber!

Ann Marie & Irene at The White Lion

Ann Marie & Mike at the White Lion

Annie on Brave New World Heading off after topping up her Supplies

We had a busy day on Sunday the 1st grabbing breakfast & lunch on the go whilst Mike stopped in bed till mid afternoon nursing a hangover! A few other boaters seemed to be struggling with hangovers and weren't their normal chatty selves, but there seemed to have been a few good parties and "boaters get togethers".

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year from Alton & Crew

Well our last round before Christmas was fun. An inch or so of ice most of the way from Macclesfield to Whaley Bridge, accompanied by snow, sleet & hail. Then on Monday the weather turned milder & it poured down with rain all day & we were soaked to the skin! Anyway we hope all our customers received a bottle of Red Willow "Smokeless" smoked Porter. In Brian's opinion this is a super beer & we wanted to support this great new Macclesfield Brewery (see http://redwillowbrewery.com/blog/). So cheers everyone & here's to a good new year.

A big thank you to everyone who gave us Christmas cards & gifts, we are always so overwhelmed by your generosity, home made Christmas cake & mince pies, panatone, bottles of wine & beer,biscuits & chocolates, even a bluetooth headset so we can answer the phone hands free. But what we really appreciated was the very kind words from you all, it's just so lovely to be appreciated & we know we are so lucky to work within a community of such good people.

We had a good old fashioned family christmas staying with my (Brian's) parents on the Wirral. We were amazed to still have my Sister Aileen with us to share Christmas day & my parents looked after us all so well, love you Mum & Dad.

Today it's back to work for us. We're loading Alton this morning & if all goes well we're hoping to start the round later this afternoon, so that we can hopefully have a reasonably early finish for New Years Eve before heading onto the Peak Forest on New Years Day.

All the best, from Brian & Ann Marie