The next obstacle on this adventure was the Bosley flight of 12 locks, to save water they are only open on Tuesdays, Thursdays or Saturdays. A big decision - should we tackle them today, a potentially wet day or wait till Saturday when it is supposed to be sunny. Canal boats on wet days are bad enough without locks, locks in the rain are awful. We have worried about this quite a bit over the past few days and at 8am this morning it was pouring with rain so I pulled the bed covers over my head and contemplated a slow boozy lunch in Congleton. But by 9am it was dry and we decided to go for it and mercifully it did not rain at all.

Gill drove through all the locks, a few bangs but nothing too bad, and with the help of a volunteer lock keeper who stayed with us through all 12 locks we were through in a couple of hours. The trouble was the volunteer kept on giving us advice on the technical issues of boating but neither of us could understand a word he said. Still for all his help he gained a bottle of wine which he seemed very pleased with.

We are now in Macclesfield where we hoped to visit the Silk Museum but it is closed due the virus, we might go and peer through the windows tomorrow. We have a couple of “light” days before tackling another long flight of locks on Sunday.