The following morning we chugged up to Stockton Heath to visit Brian and Margaret at Thorn Marine and whilst we were there, got some heatproof sealant to renew the existing stuff on the main Squirrel Stove in the saloon. Then it was off to the shops to have a look around and eventually we ended up in the Red Lion for a liquid lunch. After winding, we headed back north to Lymm again where we had planned to meet up with a few friends. Shortly after leaving our Grappenhall mooring I came across two unconverted motors which was a lovely sight. They were ex GUCCCo Lacerta, which has been cut down to what looked around 45ft and Petrel, an ex Fellows Morton & Clayton Josher, now under the Orion Canal Carrier name which I hadn’t heard of before. Both boats were very well presented and had that looked after feel about them which was nice.

Also, ex GUCCCo Pavo passed our boat and moored up in front of us shortly after arriving in Lymm, which didn’t seem to be full length and had a cabin conversion, and the back end didn’t appear to be original either. I had a quick chat with the owner, but unfortunately I didn’t catch his name. The engine is a Lister JP2 but is a bit unusual in the way that the flywheel is on the “wrong” side, which means that the engine was very high on it’s mountings. I was going to ask about whether this caused any problems with the propshaft having to run higher under the cabin floor etc. He mentioned aswell, that he was born on a pair of Willow Wrens back in 1955 and remembers my uncles boat, Stirling in its working day. I would of liked to chat all day but he was wanting to be off! We did also finally manage to meet up with my Uncle and Julie, his partner, in The Saddlers, before nipping over to the Bridgewater Hotel to meet some friends which turned out to be quite a good evening.