Approaching Liverpool

It's pretty flat as you move west and south a bit, with the usual objects to pass under…

or over…

or to wave at.

No locks on this stretch of the canal, but a variety of swing bridges, at which my best beloved disembarks (so much easier from the front)…

and then uses as a substitute for one of those machines in the gym…

unless she's fortunate enough to find it operates, as some of them do, with just a key and a button.

By this time we were close to Aintree, so we looked for the horses…

but these particular nags didn't look as though they were going to win any sort of national.

Eventually we reached the swing bridge beyond which no one passes without CRT permission. So this is where we stay tonight until they let us through in the morning for our passage through some of the more dubious parts of the city. 

We'd made good time, with something nice gently stirring in the slow cooker, so I took the opportunity to walk half a mile to the local Aldi. A bus stopped just behind me, so I turned and got on (the magic of the bus pass!). Only to find it was a school bus! However, the driver took pity on me and took me down to the junction anyway – must have been the shorts that did it! But I had to walk back.

Then it was time to peer down the weed hatch (AKA plastic bag / old carpet / odd bits of string hatch). I'd felt some unevenness during the journey and, sure enough, found enough gubbins to be the cause, which I duly removed. Finally I checked the diesel. While cruising I'd been counting how many days out we were from the last fill-up, and toying with the sums involving engine hours per day and litres per hour. I certainly didn't want to be stranded half-way into Liverpool with no fuel. In the event I was so surprised with how much depth there was in the tank (I measure diesel in centimetres!) that I went to the boat's manual to check the size of the tank. Halfie has posted some info about his fuel consumption, and I'm looking forward to comparing mine with his when we next fill up.