The Return of the Ice

Well for our last run of January the ice decided to return, just to remind us we are very much still in winter. We set of from Fools Nook at 7.30am on Saturday, breaking ice all the way.

Our first customers where at Gurnett aqueduct and our regulars on NB Elleni and NB Sir Daniel Gooch

Once we arrived in Macclesfield we found our pumpout pump and hoses were frozen solid and took a couple of hours to strip them down and thaw them out with many kettles of hot water. This and the ice put us a bit behind schedule, but we made reasonable progress and had a busy day. We decided to push on and we were near Adlington as the sunset. We continue to serve customers and a big thanks to Sue for the coffee and cake and also Liz for the sausage butties, mmm our customers do look after us! We finally tied up at Poynton wide about 7pm where Brian nipped down to the Boars Head for a swift pint, whilst Ann Marie cooked tea.

Sunday dawned to another cold start, we set of about 8am and were so busy with customers that we didn't manage to leave the area until about noon, oh we do like to keep busy.

We carried on to Marple where we had to back down the arm to serve some customers which was interesting having to ice break going astern! Once outside Marple around Strines the ice was thicker, up to 2 inches in places but it only reall slowed us up on the corners.

We were soon busy again and we were serving customers at New Mills as darkness fell. so it was time for a bit more night boating whilst we headed to Furness Vale to Moor for the night.

On Monday we made our deliveries around Bugsworth and Whaley Bridge where we narrowly avoided getting some of BW's dreaded orange netting around the prop!

and we saw more and more of the dreaded stuff in the cut on the way back, including at Bollington

and at Gurnett:

 This stuff is an absolute nightmare to remove from the prop especially when the steel stakes are inter twined.

Anyway on Monday afternoon we were joined by our good friend Graham Beard, who accompanied us to Marple. We then had a very pleasant evening at the Regent Cinema, Marple. This is a lovely old fashioned cinema and we thoroughly enjoyed ithe film Kings Speech.

Today we have made our return Journey down the Macc catching a few more customers. We were ice-breaking again and being followed  by NB Magic all the way back to Oakgove.

NB Magic near Lyme Green