Lots of Rain

Friday 17th July

A thoroughly wet day. If it were not for the aim of reaching Nantwich tomorrow for shopping, we might well have hibernated for the day! After some very frustrating times with no internet connection - or when there was a signal getting no email - Mike spent some time whilst moored near Whitchurch with at least some signal. It turned out that there were several problems, most notably that the system was set to download Windows Updates automatically as soon as a connection was established. Some large downloads were pending and this completely blocked any other exchanges! At least in the end all oustanding emails were downloaded even if we did not have enough time to upload the blogs from the past few days.

Fairly quickly we arrived at Grindley Brook staircase, expecting to find a queue but, apart from one already going down, the flight was quite empty! In fact we saw very few boats moving all day, in either direction. Not sure if it was due to the weather or the changeover days for the hire bases that are within normal cruising distance of this stretch. certainly it seems that few boats come down this far from the upper end of the Llangollen.

We treated ourselves to a good hour lunch break! The we moved on and reached the bottom of the three Baddiley Locks just as yet another heavy shower arrived. Time definitely to moor up early for the rest of the day! Alas, no internet connection so blogs will have to wait yet another day. However, well before stopping Christine decided that it was time for a fire - which kept the cabin cosy for the rest of the evening - steering with the chimney on is not so simple!