I initially heard about this on CWF, and then, later on, on TV.

The BBC says…

A 15-year-old girl has had both her legs amputated after they became trapped in a swing bridge she was sitting on in Greater Manchester. Jade Smethurst, from Abbey Hey, Gorton, was with friends at the Yew Tree Swing Bridge on Buxton Lane, Droylsden, Tameside, when the accident happened. It is thought she was dangling her legs over the edge when the bridge swung back, trapping her against the bank. She had both legs removed below the knee following the accident on Friday.

The heavy steel bridge over the Ashton Canal is fixed at one end, opening like a gate, to allow barges to travel along the waterway. Swing bridges are locked and can only be opened with a key, which is issued to boaters. It is unclear why the bridge was unlocked and an investigation is under way to discover if the bridge was left unlocked by a boat user or vandalised.

Friends of Jade, who is a Year 10 pupil at Wright Robinson Specialist College, are said to have pushed the bridge open to free her before the emergency services arrived. She was treated at the scene by a specialist trauma medical team during the incident at about 2030 BST and was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary where she underwent the emergency amputation. She has since been transferred to Booth Hall Children’s Hospital where her condition is described as “comfortable”.

Jade’s mother, Wendy, said: “None of us is thinking straight at the moment. It is still a nightmare we are going through and it’s still a blank. “At the moment she is comfortable and we have not really spoken to her about it. I’ve not spoken to anybody properly about what happened. “We’d like to thank the emergency services, the doctors and nurses at Manchester Royal Infirmary and Booth Hall and her loyal friends who helped.”

British Waterways, the Greater Manchester Police and the Health and Safety Executive are investigating the accident.

A spokeswoman for the North West Ambulance Service said: “When paramedics arrived at the scene they found she had suffered horrendous injuries and a medical team was called. “They gave her a lot of pain relief as she had traumatic fractures.

” A police spokesman added: “We are investigating the incident which we are treating as a tragic accident.”

A spokeswoman for British Waterways said: “We are conducting an investigation into the incident and cannot really comment until we know exactly what has happened.”

Just what are BW playing at? They have postponed the auction once already, and now, according to the Go Industry website, it has been delayed further.

“THIS SALE HAS BEEN POSTPONED AND DUE TO CLOSE ON THURSDAY, 31ST JULY.
LOTS WILL BE UPLOADED INTERMITTENTLY”.

I wonder what Go Industry, as a company who organise huge international auctions, for multi national organisions think of British Waterways?

Whilst visiting Middlewich last weekend for the Folk & Boat Fesitval, I walked passed the IWA stand and was passed a leaflet advertising a Canal and River Festival at Anderton Nature Park on the 21st and 22nd June. I did find out the event was taking place a couple of weeks ago but I had no idea what was happening over the weekend. The leaflet states that there’ll be childrens events, colourful working and pleasure boats, many stands and stalls, the Mersey Morris Men Brass Band, and the Cheshire Year of Gardens event, amongst other things.

Again, I won’t be able to make it in the boat, unfortunately but I hope to make a trip out on the Saturday in the car to see what’s going on. I’ll be taking my camera with me so I’ll also be hoping to add the snaps to the gallery! More information, including contact details for the event can be found here:

www.northwichcommunitywoodlands.org.uk

A friend of mine is looking to replace his current Lister SR2 engine with a Lister SR3.

When he bought the 45ft narrowboat it had an SR3 installed but a year or so ago, when coming back from a trip it packed up. He managed to get an SR2 for a reasonable price from a friend but he has decided it’s now not pulling right. He therefore wants to fit an SR3 back in the boat.

So, if you have a Lister SR3 for sale, or knows somebody who does, or even an ST2 as I beleive this is of the same spec, or thereabouts, please let me know.

I have just got back home after visiting Middlewich to check out the Boat and Folk Fesitval. Although I didn’t get to see much of what was going on in town, which was my own choice, I did walk from below Big Lock to above Kings Lock. There was a nice variety of working boats, as well as pleasure and cabin boats selling a variety of things, including Fudge!

Middlewich itself was very busy and as I walked around it looked like it was going to be an evening of entertainment with the amount of bands setting up and warming up! One day we’ll actually manage to get there on the boat!

There are a few pictures which have been added to the gallery. Check them out.

Today the linking system within the website has been changed. You may not have noticed, but before the naming convention of the links didn’t really have any relevance, and also, more importantly, they weren’t very search engine friendly. The names of the links are now the actual names of the posts I add. With a bit of luck, Google may like me the better for it!

It also gives me pleasure to report that the Canal Route Planner website appears to be alive and kicking once more. The site dropped off the Internet around a week ago, which caused much discussion on CWF.

Some more albums have been added into the Gallery this evening. At last! It’s been a right pain trying to get it to work just as I wanted it to, which involved chopping the code to bits, but it’s finally done!

Good timing really, seeing as though I treated myself with the new cam, and along with Middlewich Festival this weekend, Dry Docking at Dutton in a couple of weeks, we’re off on our annual boating holiday sometime in July or August so more pictures will be on the way!

I thought I’d finally treat myself to a new camera. You get sick of trying to take pictures using a mobile phone, and the quality is usually very poor anyway.

It’s a Fuji FinePix S5700 and although a modest peice of kit, I couldn’t find a bad review about it on the Internet. Quite reasonable too, really, at £99 (or £89 if you use the Jessops Voucher Code for 10% off!).

So who’s going then? The original plan was for us to move the boat towards Middlewich during the week after work, eventually arriving there on either Thursday or Friday evening. Those plans have been scuppered now, due to the problems with the boat previously mentioned. Although not managing it on the boat I will still be going, along with my Dad, as Road Hogs. Sunday I am not so sure about but we’ll definately be there for most of the day on Saturday.

Don’t forget to let on if you see me around - I will be the one down on the cut, with my new camera taking shots of the working boats there - with a bit of luck a few will turn up, they usually do!

The official website: The Middlewich Folk & Boat Fesitval

I’ve delayed adding new content to the site recently as I was putting off updating the software, until now. I’m pleased to say the new version is up and running which should do me for a while.

I have done a fair bit of boating recently, although only local. A couple of weeks ago it was the FBCC Rally at Astley near Leigh on the Bridgewater, we’ve also took a trip up to Worsley and also been up to Grappenhall last weekend as well as potting around near the Dunham/Lymm area.

Earlier on today I spoke to Tim and have booked a day or so to get the boat out of the water at his dock in Dutton. The tiller bearing was recently replaced but now there are other problems which appear to be coming from lower down towards the skeg. Tim has agreed to doing the work for us, which involves removing the rudder, grinding off the old cup, making a replacement and then building the welds up around it to secure it to the skeg, and afterwards of course replacing the rudder. It should take no more than a couple of hours to do and cost wise seemed quite reasonable. We’ll be shifting the boat up that way on the 5th and 6th of July, ready for it to come out the following morning.