Saturday 8th September 2007 stationary at Oak Grove Mike, Wendy, cats Tilly & Mandy
Tilly stayed out again, and in the afternoon Wendy found a bus into Macclesfield for some shopping. The town has a lot of town-centre shops but looks as though main food shopping is done out-of-town. Wendy found only a M&S and a Tesco Metro. She got back to the boat at about 17:00 - about the same time as Tilly. Mike closed the cat-flap and we hoped for an early start. Sunday 9th September 2007 Oak Grove to Marple Mike, Wendy, cats Tilly & Mandy 9:30 was a bit later start than we'd hoped. We planned to drop in to visit our friends Mark & Jean in Bollington (Mark was my boss at one time), but realised that we'd probably arrive at Mark & Jean's at lunchtime, so we stopped near Kerridge for some lunch on board in order to get there at a more convenient time. While we were mooring we met Stuart Barnes of the Macclesfield Canal Society, who will be the host for my talk next week. We stopped at Mark & Jean's, but they weren't in. A neighbour told us they were at the Transport Extravaganza we'd been past earlier. So we went on to Marple, much of the way being very shallow, although there are bits where one can get up to 3 mph. The cats, especially Tilly, were frustrated at having two stops when they couldn't go out. On the visitor moorings before bridge 2 at Marple we had difficulty finding a spot with enough depth to moor, but managed in the end. I went for a stroll to see if there were any moorings for more than 48 hours in case we decide to stay here for me to travel to London. I didn't find any but did meet Arthur and Patty Hayes, who we remember from one of the Stafford GIGs. Whether we do the next bit of the journey before or after my trip to London (which depends on when the cats come back in the morning), to get to Ellesmere Port in time for my talk there, we'll have to do some fairly hard boating for some of the time. DAY'S RUN 14.0 miles, no locks in 5 hours 28 mins. -- Mike Stevens narrowboat Felis Catus III web-site www.mike-stevens.co.uk No man is an island. So is Man.
