The Olympic Flame and We’ve been Grassed Up

Monday 28^th May 2012 to Friday 1^st June 2012

14 Miles, 2 Locks, 5 Swing Bridges for this week

Totals:  1148 Miles,  917 Locks, 32 Tunnels, 18 Lift Bridges, 26 Swing Bridges

 We needed to wait until Monday where we had moored over the weekend so that we could take Banjo back to see the Vet – he improved a great deal and the vet was satisfied with his progress – so we now have enough tablets for about 4 weeks and an appointment to come back in about 6 weeks time.

 After a glorious weekend it was now time to move on just a little bit further on and we carried on through Apperley Bridge and onto Parbold – we have been advised that though there we quite a number of moorings it might be a bit difficult to get one – we were lucky to find one after the turn and before the bridge.

The deep lock at Lock 91

Parbold is a really lovely village as we found during a fairly lengthy walk around – visiting Our Lady and All Saints Church – a massive church for a village/town of this size.

a magnificent structure in the middle of Parbold

A couple of days in Parbold and as usual it is just so easy to meet up with other boaters and so we meet up with nb Enterprise (sorry guys we didn’t get your names) who are heading to Liverpool.

It was very very quiet where we moored up – not a sound was heard all night and considering we were in the centre of the area it was very pleasing.

We did find out that where we were planning to head to – Burscough Bridge – was to be involved in a very significant event on the Friday – in just a couple of days time.

So we moved on and did battle with the swing bridges – at least Diane did the battle I just steered through.

In defence of the realm

We had noticed that there did not seem to be many places to get the necessities of life aboard sorted out – in particular any pump-out stations – two of those that had been marked down were no longer in existence – the most extraordinary of these being the one which had been located in the middle of Burscough Bridge.

There had been a total redevelopment of this area with shops, chandlery and cafes which looks incredible and a lovely area had been created – only problem is that despite ordering the pumpout equipment, BW management forgot to tell the builders and include the requirement in the plans, so consequently it wasn’t built - thank you very much from the top of our grey tank.

As is always the case, local knowledge from other boaters meant that we knew exactly where the next place to visit would be; in addition there were some very helpful BW staff on the ground to advise as well.

Speaking of whom they were also able to help out with a reluctant swing bridge – it didn’t want to open but was quite happy to sound the bells and flash the light but not to move.

The boat club next to the Red Lion Caravan Park provided the pumpout and we could once again uncross our legs.

Back to moor up at Burscough and we were up early on Friday morning to head up to the town to be there at 8am – the roads were being closed off in anticipation of the journey of the Olympic Flame down the main street on its way to Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool.

It all started with a couple of people standing behind one
another and pretty soon they were queueing down both sides
of the road in fine British fashion



Even the Beatles were there

This guy was way too fit - fancy running up the hill - it was gone
almost before we saw it

Further to the work done by BW – early in the morning we had three staff rapidly making their way along towpath – two with larger mowers cutting the grass on either side of the towpath and a third with a smaller one cleaning and tidying the area close to each boat – trouble being that without any clear direction of the cut grass, most of it ended up on the side of the boat – talk about being grassed up.

It would have saved a repaint if we wanted green - but the towpath
looked a lot better

  But they did a great job and with no complaints from me – "she" might have something else to say as she was the designated cleaner of the mess.