Wednesday 24 June 2015

Barging Round Britain!



Lovely sculpture outside the museum at Portland Basin
Made from spoons forks spanners etc

We did get the bike out on Saturday and cycled down to Fairfield Junction, the nearest water point as far as we could work out!  On the way back we spotted the sign for the Moravian Settlement and being Saturday the museum was open, so we decided to visit.  It was fascinating.  We came from the canal into a cobbled area which could have been in the 1800.  A real step back in time.  The museum was very interesting.  Sunday found us back in another  museum, this time at Portland Basin just a short walk from where we are moored.  This shows the industrial development of the area.  Yesterday Paul painted the side of the boat as this is quite a nice mooring.  Then in the afternoon John Sergeant was here, filming for ITV.  We watched for a while.  There was a wooden hulled boat (not many left these days) with a butty.  They were just getting ready, then finally got under way and we watched them cruise past Falcon. 
John Sergeant and crew!
 Well when we say cruised past John managed to put the boat aground, then the butty caught up with him and there was some sorting of ropes to be done!  In the end they threw Paul a rope and he helped to pull them off.  The boat is called Forget-Me-Not and the butty is Hazel.  Paul was filmed, but don’t know if it will make it on to TV.  It will be interesting to see how the whole thing is finally portrayed.  During all this we got chatting to the proper boat crew who came from the museum at Portland Basin and we can get water there.  So that’s where we are off to now.  Supply getting a bit low.  We will then moor just around the corner as we have yet to explore Ashton-Under-Lyne and plan to get the metro into Manchester.






Boat stuck on the bottom, the only smile we saw from John was when
 Paul called to him and asked for a smile in return for pulling them off the bank!

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