For Eddie and Carol Egg Bridge is as far as they will get with the boat. From now on they are on the way back. It is still difficult to grasp, though. They live in Warrington, and if someone asks them where they went for this weeks holiday, they have to answer: Chester. Which is only 33 kilometres away as the crow flies, and only 40 kilometres (about half an hour) by car. But it took us about three days…!
Eddie is skipper
Today the weather definitely improves. Eddie is skipper, and me and Lawrance are the lockies. Lawrance gets his first lessons in doing locks. Notice the sun cream on the hatch!
Lawrance doing a lock
Sun cream…!
The cabin crew (i.e. Carol) provides us once again with a perfect lunch.
Perfect lunch
At Calverley we stop to get water. Because it is busy, Eddie moors on the opposite side of the canal. I jump off, walk over the bridge to the other side to make sure no one gets in the space before us. I see Eddie doing some strange manoeuvres and I think he’s practising reversing. But he managed to get grounded, and has a lot of trouble to get floating again.
At Bunbury Staircase Locks there is a lock keeper on duty today. We see another Bunbury Shuffle but, when we are in, we have the lock to ourselves.
Bunbury Shuffle
Once again we stop at Church Minshull for the night, and walk to The Badger Inn (and back, this time) for supper.
Climbing up the steps to get onto Cross Lane I realise, that being on a narrowboat is something like living in a different world. The underworld, so to speak. Ten, fifteen steps to go from a peaceful, slow moving heaven into a hell, where everybody is in a hurry, and only think of: Me, me, me.