Waterproofs

I think this is the first day for ages when we've had both travel plans and rain. We wanted to get up the rest of the Cheshire locks to be in Kidsgrove for Sunday, while the Met Office was promising light showers in the middle of the day. We thought it would be OK. In fact the showers turned into some quite heavy rain by the time our journey ended, and the Met Office had updated their webpage to match the reality. Definitely not a day for taking photos.

We've lit the fire early to warm up and dry out, though it's taken longer to get going the last couple of days. Fuel stocks will need to be replenished soon – it's that time of year. We're sort of meandering at the moment. We've no date by which we have to get back to the marina, but neither do we now have any particular cruising plans. It's nice to take each day as it comes, see what happens and what there might be to attract our attention along the way. We have to decide whether we'll go up the Macclesfield Canal for a little, but it's been suffering from leaks and stoppages recently, and we don't want to get stuck up there. We'll probably just head slowly south to Great Haywood by easy stages.

Meanwhile, our feet have just about dried enough to stick on the shoes and go out again – Tesco's is about a quarter of a mile walk. We'll be wearing waterproofs.