As you'll know if you've been following my trio reports, our boating this summer has been seriously disrupted by one of our cats going walkabout rather too often. Now we've been hit by another delay, in that Wendy's chest infection, which she's been struggling with for a few weeks flared up seriously the other evening, meaning we lost another day's boating while she was sorting out some treatment for it. Perversely the wandering cat came back at about 08:00 that day!. Wendy's responding well to the medication she's been prescribed, so we're hoping to start boating again on Friday.
It has to be Friday because I'm in London for a couple of days, the giving a talk to the Macclesfield Canal Society on Thursday evening. But I've got a week to get from where the boat is now, at Marple, to Ellesmere Port, where I'm due to give another talk at the Boat Museum. Looking at possible schedules, just about the only possible way of meeting the deadline would be to put in what is (by our standards) a marathon day on Friday and get from Marple to Manchester. Ducie Street would do, Castlefield would be too much to hope for. This involves something like 10 hours' boating with 34 locks. Is anybody in that part of the system willing and able to come and be extra crew for us on Friday? -- Mike Stevens narrowboat Felis Catus III web-site www.mike-stevens.co.uk No man is an island. So is Man.
