Who stole the sun?

Last nights sunset was beautiful after a blisteringly hot day.

You do see some amazing things alongside the canal.

First swing bridge of the day.

I salute you.

Bluebells and Wild Garlic giving off their wonderful perfume.

Approaching Appeley locks, with the abandoned locks to the left, which have been replaced by a single deep lock.

Having arrived at Appeley lock I discovered that neither ground paddle was working. We knew one was out of action, but now both were not working, so I rang C&RT to report the problem. I had to fill the lock slowly with the gate paddles, which as the lock is 12ft deep it took a while. Hadar got a wash with the huge volume of water pouring into the lock. Whilst the lock was filling another boat arrived behind us. Having moved Hadar out of the lock, I then could not shut the gate, there was something stopping it, so Keith reversed back to the open gate and flushed whatever it was out with the propeller. We decided to wait and help the other boat up through the lock and we paired up for the following 3 locks to Wigan Pier. The rain started to spit and spot, but by the time we moored up it was really raining. We will be sharing tomorrows locks with George & Linda on Wandering Star.

Having moored up at Wigan Pier, we set off in the rain to Asda for a food shop. We are contemplating changing to Asda when we get to back to our mooring, because they do appear to be cheaper in may respects. But I will have to do more research on other things we buy.