Gracie Update

Remiss of me, we now have a State of Gracie Facebook page and so this tends to be updated rather than the blog. So much has and hasn't happened since last posting.

Gracie has now been out of the water, in dry dock; we have to have some welding done; painting the exterior has started and interior is starting to take shape.

We blacked her ourselves at Portland Basin Marina at the end of the Peak Forest Canal. It was reopened in 2000 as part of the Huddersfield Canal reopening. Lovely people, can recommend it as an excellent place to have work done.

The gas locker floor needs replacing, combination of water underneath in the water tank, a slight lip where the water should drain and gas bottles grinding into metal meant a small hole developed. So we are getting a new floor welded in, the lip removed and some hardwood strips to rest the bottles on. The welder says it has happened previously, so a design fault.

The dogs continue to love this life. We are travelling along the entire Peak Forest Canal and going down into Manchester, via Stalybridge, or StalyVegas, as it is known locally!

We are slowly getting to know boaters and organisations, we have joined the National Association of Boat Owners and Stella has attended the boater's meeting in Birmingham and the Manchester and Peninne  AGM. We have also put our money where our mouth is and become Friends of CRT; meaning that we are sponsoring CRT as well as paying a licence.

Have a good summer everyone

The Journey Continues

Today we thought we would travel to Portland Basin and then onto Marple tomorrow; however,  Portland Basin is awful, no moorings, canal bank perished and so we stopped long enough to nip to the big ASDA and get dog and cat food and then out of there.

Did some washing whilst engine was on, a beautifully sunny warm day - the warmest so far,  due to a lack of wind - even Jo, our elderly black cat sat and enjoyed the scenery and we finally moored up just through Hyde Bank Tunnel.

Manchester is a funny place to cruise through - children's toys dumped in the canal,  although it was nice to hear parents telling children off for dropping the bread bag and at the first bridge being helped through by local lads who operated it for me,  much to their delight. Maybe that's the answer is to show these people what canal life is like; maybe, if enough had an appreciation of it, they would be more thoughtful.