It seems the gods are against me with regard to my plan to use the foliage from the boatyard to make a bonfire to celebrate something, anything. First of all the plan for a Samhain fire was stymied by "Forget me Not"s breakdown. OK, I thought, lets have a Solstice fire. We had a tornado at the solstice! OK then, January 1st to celebrate the New Year ( I thought people would already have plans for New Year's Eve). I was recovering from a hospital visit and actually slept through the New Year fireworks.
"Forget me Not" was still loaded with brash for the fire. It has to come off. I've re-set the date for the fire to January 12th. Nothing much to celebrate except my dad's 109th birthday. It seemed a good idea to get the load off ready so on Sunday me, Aaron, Helen and Ozzy set off up the Peak Forest. We towed "Hazel" along so that Helen could get a bit more practice at butty steering.
Dukinfield lift bridge is always a challenge to get a deep drafted boat through. It's a favourite fly tipping spot, and, inevitably some of the rubbish ends up in the bridgehole. It's always bad, but we've always managed to get through it. until now.
As usual, I wound the power on as we approached the bridge, expecting to bounce and grind a way through. In fact the stern end of the motor boat leaped several inches upwards and abruptly stopped. The butty came hurtling onwards and jammed between motor and copings with a crunch.
Various people were waiting to cross the raised bridge so I was glad that we were able to extract the boats before tempers got strained. After dropping the bridge to let people cross, we raised it and had another go. The boat stuck again. Dusk was gathering so we pulled the boats back and tied them for the night.
Next morning I rang CRT. They asked if the boat was deep drafted (with an unspoken implication that that made it our own fault). I pointed out that 2'9" was less than the metre depth that should be available on this canal. Kim came along to help and we had a go at clearing the bridgehole using a grappling iron and a keb. Unfortunately the blockage seemed to be of stone or concrete and we couldn't get it out.
I drove "Forget me Not" at the blockage and, as she entered the narrows, Kim and Aaron each grabbed a line and pulled hard. Again the stern leaped out of the water, but she kept going and I was able to tie her on the other side while we went back to bowhaul "Hazel" through.
Soon we were at the bonfire site, an area of rough ground infested with himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed. I checked on trees that we've planted there in previous years, then we unloaded the brash, ready to form into a bonfire. We then had a relativel uneventful trip to Hyde to wind. On the way back we got through the bridge by the usual method of taking a run at it and hoping for the best.
