Friday 3^rd April 2020

Today was a long day. The service point at Calveley was just 100 yards from the mooring. It took a long time to fill with water, doing a couple of washes at the same time. We had quite a few bags of rubbish to dispose of, including a number that had been lashed down on the roof.

Once all the servicing was complete, we set off for Nantwich and shopping, passing numerous boats on the move. Just before the Nantwich moorings, Nantwich Marina is reached. The basin was the original terminus of the Chester Canal and so another canal has been travelled for its entire length, all 17 miles in this case, and another plaque fixed to the rear door.

                

                                                  Nantwich Marina Basin, the original terminus of the Chester Canal, 

                  with the main line of the Shropshire Union Canal continuing on the left towards Wolverhampton.

There had been reports of trouble at Nantwich between boaters and the locals. Apparently it started when one boater, who then moved on, attempted to fence off the towpath around his boat and then spread tacks and drawing pins to try to stop people walking and cycling past his boat. This led to trouble from locals walking the towpath, coughing and spitting on boats, dogs getting them stuck in their paws and cyclists with punctures, including Police on bikes. This Corona Virus will undoubtedly, bring out the best in most people, but the worst in others. But as we say, fortunately, there are more nice people in this world than there are bad. It’s just that the bad tend to get all the publicity.

Nonetheless, we were relieved to find a long line of moored boats at Nantwich and we managed to moor amongst them.

The shopping run was a strange experience. We had not been in a town or really amongst people since we left Chester 10 days ago. While the lock down was already in effect at this time, it was not being taken too seriously or enforced. We noticed big changes in people’s interaction and behaviour. The few people we saw on the walk down Welsh Row into the town, walked out into the middle of the road to pass each other.

The town centre was almost completely deserted with people keeping well apart from each other. One of the banks had desks set up outside their premises with people queuing, keeping about 15 feet apart. It was all very strange.

At Morrison’s, we had to queue to get into the store with a certain number of people being let in at a time, dependant on a certain number leaving. The store was reasonably well stocked and we managed to buy all we needed. It was however, a very uncomfortable feeling, being in close company with people. It certainly hasn’t taken long for people’s attitudes to change. We had bought far too much considering we had to carry it all almost a mile back to the boat.

We moved off straight away, not wanting to linger any longer in a town. We had to travel a mile before reaching the first winding hole and turning. During this, Brenda unpacked the shopping. With only limited space on board the unpacking and storage is an art. Food is unpacked and put into plastic bags in manageable portions. After any shopping expedition, this always leaves us with an annoying and totally unnecessary amount of packaging, that we then have to keep on board until we next reach a rubbish disposal site. It is not as though we can just put it into an outside bin and forget about it.

With this in mind, we stopped briefly at the Nantwich service point to dump all the packaging before continuing out into the countryside, mooring up on the 48 hour moorings just before the Hurleston Junction bridge.

Day Total: 0 locks; 10 miles; 0 Tunnels; 0 Swing Bridges; 0 Lift Bridges; 0 Boat Lift; Day’s running hours 4.5

Overall Total: 905 locks; 1596 miles; 53 tunnels; 61 Swing Bridges; 17 Lift Bridges; 2 Boat Lifts; total engine running hours 1077.8