June 12

Hi, and thanks for your patience. The entire website vanished, except for the opening picture and your past comments. I have had a major restore done, but this returned me to June 4, so there is a bunch to get caught up on. Your indulgence as this post will be large.

I’ve been travelling south and west on the Leeds and Liverpool canal, and after arranging things in Wigan, moved to Halsall to await the passage day. We needed to get to Bridge 9 just outside Aintree for 0930h on Sunday for C&RT (the canal people) to operate the swing bridge(s) and shepherd us through the Liverpool Canal link into the center of Liverpool. Chris and Nick , whom I am travelling with at the present, spent 2 days dealing with their affairs, returning Thursday to our boats. We moved on in torrential rain to be close to Bridge 9, and to do a little shopping in Aintree.

The passage into Liverpool was exceptionally different. We went down a fight of 4 locks, then immediately were between two enormous warehouses, and into the port of Liverpool. No longer canal in the sense of what I have experienced, now I am where the big ships went. Most of the inner docks are abandoned in terms of shipping: they were designed for the manual stevedore and longshoreman work of barrels, sacks, crates, and drums of materials. Today, containers rule, and that port facility is further along.

Through dock area after area, through locks to regulate the now tidal and salt water, we made our way through the Albert dock, having passed the iconic Liver Building, and thousands of onlookers. We passed tall ships, a light ship, and several large yachts, before mooring in the Salthouse Dock, which is a marina designed for canal traffic like us.

This coming weekend is a festival, including tall ships, a dutch barge rally, and many entertainment events around the Albert dock area. We were to miss most of that, as our arrangement was to leave on Saturday, but… Chris had to return to Devizes again, and on the way was hit by a large truck that caused her car to roll. This changed things immediately! She is (very thankfully) unhurt, though a little scrambled! However, there are so many things to get sorted out, that Nick has arranged for us to stay here until Tuesday. I will get to experience the festival! In the meantime, museums, a visit to the cathedral for evensong, and other excursions. I’ll post again tomorrow, to show pictures of some of that.

Thanks for your patience. Please feel free to comment: that way I know that there are people out there reading this.