Church Minshull, Middlewich Branch Monday 13 August 2012
A quiet week-end, did some shopping, boat maintenance, made some phone calls and caught up on correspondence.  Oh, also went for a Chinese meal with some others; Peter & Susan from Braidbar, James & Doug from nb Chance and Stephen & Jayne from nb Dolce far Niente.  It was a party for Chris & Les from nb Eleventh Heaven as it was his birthday and was organised by Bill & Eileen from nb New Dawn.  Chris’s mum, family and friends had also come along (a total of 29 people).  Les had also been ‘in the know’ about the birthday bit but got a surprise herself when a 10th wedding anniversary cake was brought out complete with eleven yellow ducks on it!  (The same number that are painted on each side of their boat).

Sunday it was off to Church, according to the local map there is a Methodist Chapel in Welsh Row, but the building is closed and the bits at the back have been converted into houses.  Instead I went to St Mary’s in the middle of town.  It is a 14th century church that was ‘restored’ in Victorian times, by stripping the reformation plastering and removing most of the memorials that had been there.  Initially I thought that some artwork high up in the nave was medieval and asked if they planned to restore it.  I got a definite no as it is part of the Victorian improvements and it has become almost unreadable.  There is also a stone pulpit carved in 1601 which looks fine, but it had originally been a ‘three deck’ pulpit and Sir Gilbert Scott (the Victorian architect) had only the top deck retained during his renovation.  All stone removed had been sent for scrap as part of the builder’s wages!

After the service I asked about the Methodist chapel and was told it was on the opposite side of the road from the old one, on the way back to the boat I still could not find it.

Today I started out at 08:45 to go down to wind the boat then headed off to Barbridge Junction to join the Middlewich Branch.  There has been only a couple of locks and both had boat crews going the opposite way so locks in my favour and helpful people to operate them.
The sun has been out all weekend but today has been cloudy and very windy, although there are afew blue patches in the sky.