Had a lovely visit to Nantwich. Such a pretty town, full of flowers,

and good shopping also .Namely , getting stacked up with Hopping Hare ale from Aldi. !

Saw the owl rescue people, there and they had a selection of owls that had been rescued from various awful places.  The birds will no longer be able to fend for themselves in the wild, so these folks take them out and about to try and teach the public about them. Little owl, scops, 2 barn owls, eagle eared owl, and a baby screech owl.

Onto to Coole Pilate mooring, which was anything but cool. Phew, busy too. But had a lovely bbq and then watched the sunset and an accompanying barn owl going about his business.

On the  way to CP, we did some very bad boating indeed, and I still can’t believe we did it, what on earth were we thinking?. A woman on her NB and towing a small tender behind her, had signalled that we could overtake her as she was just ambling along. Through a bridge-hole we went and then increased speed to pass, having completely ignored the fact that there was a small blue springer type boat moored up.  He hammered on his window as we shot passed( quite rightly so).

The next day, and sitting on the back, in the shade, I felt the full force of his anger.( mick was having a snooze !!!) .  I was given a very sound telling off, and informed that our stupid action had caused £20 worth of damage inside his boat.  I apologised profusely, a couple of times, by which time he had gone off up the cut. It was a very stupid thing to do on our part. I do wish he had pulled up in front of us , and showed us the damage, as we would have been happy to  make recompense.

Audlem locks, my favourite, although not Micks, They have a powerful side wash, that pushes the unwary boater all over the place, namely smashing into the side of the lock.  We got caught on one big time, and the big hairy boater coming up behind us, gave his poor wife a right telling off to the tune of “ for f****s sake, woman, watch what yer doin’ “ !!!!.

Half way along the lock flight,the lovely lady who leaves her excellent produce out with an honesty box,has been diagnosed with cancer and has just weeks to live.  Her and her husband are retired vets. I was lucky to see Chris, her husband and thank them so much for putting out their surplus veg and fruit and flowers, and also to say how sorry we ALL are to hear the bad news.  He is the one, who actually grows the produce, so has said that it will help him in the coming weeks, months etc, and will carry on with it. 

Reached the top of the locks, and a farmers wife, has set up another wee stall with honesty box, that offers, wonderful homemade cakes, bread, farm ice cream( you have to go just inside her shed, and the ice cream is stored in the freezer). This ice cream is amazing. So natural and not a bit sickly. We all love it, especially Finlay, if he is lucky to get some !!!!!  into small paper carriers she places 2 Scones, small pot of jam, and then you help yourself to clotted cream from the freezer.  This is £3.50.Everything is under a shady tree with an awning and some pretty bunting.  Its really super.

 leaving Nantwich

 its a BARN OWL, honest !!!!!

 Top of Audlem