9 miles and 25 locks today. More or less all day doing locks as we climbed up through what is sometimes known sh “Heartbreak Hill”, though we rather enjoyed it. There were quite a lot of boats about. We were following an AngloWelsh hire boat. They were making resonable progress, though we did catch them

Our best trip ever up the M5/M6. As it was Saturday I expected it to be busy, but we made it in 2 hours 15 minutes. So a quick unload and we were off towards Middlewich. We shared Big Lock with a family who were then just going to turn and go back. When we

An early start for us. Heddi and I got up and were away by 6:30, the others were still in bed. The only purpose of today’s rip was to get to Anderton to have a pumpout, then back to the marina . This was all done by twelve o’clock. A quick lunch, tidy up then

A much better day today, the wind has dropped and the sun come out. We needed to go shopping as Nikki had left tonight’s meal in her freezer at home. A quick check with Nicholsons revealed that the only place likely to have a supermarket was Nantwich so we headed that way. There were more

Only a short trip today, so a bit of a lie in and a leisurely breakfast. Then drop down the three locks and the Big Lock and back ‘home’.

For the last few weeks Just Heaven has been in the dry dock at Nantwich. The well known boat painter Andy Russell has been giving her a complete new look. We gave Andy some general ideas, but left it mostly up to him. We are very pleased with the result.

Just an hour and a half’s chug back to the marina, packed up and off home.

26 miles, 1 stop lock, 3 tunnels. The weather started off fine, so we set off early. It stayed ok for most of the day, but then started raining in the afternoon. We have been boating for about a month and so far it has rained every day. A stop for lunch at the entrance

A wet, dry, wet, dry, wet sort of day. We left Middlewich at 8:30ish. The three locks were set for us, but as we came down the first one a young lad started to empty the middle one! I went down and told him we were just coming out of the top lock, so then

The Downs family arrived at 9:15. As soon as they had unpacked and had a coffee we set off towards Middlewich. We hadn’t gone far when it started to pour with rain. Paul and I stayed outside getting wet whilst the others remained dry. We stopped at Bramble Cuttings until the rain stopped, then carried