We left our mooring by Melling Bridge on Saturday morning - no-one had come to collect the sacks in the water so we’re assuming they did not contain drugs - thank goodness for that!
I’d picked up a load of rubbish on the prop when dropping George off at Maghull Hall Swing Bridge (12) and am waiting for him to finish closing the bridge so that he can dive down the weed hatch to enable us to continue ...
… my view of this charming cottage while I held Rock n Roll was so much better than his down that hole!
No problems though at Methodist Swing Bridge (15)
Oops, the control box at Bells Swing Bridge (16) is wrapped in red and white tape; CRT has already been informed and are on the way ...
… it didn’t take long and we were on our way once again.
Ladies celebrating a birthday aboard the Pride of Sefton trip boat.
We stopped for the night by The Ship at Haskayne Bridge - it’s rather run down I’m afraid - half the letters of it’s name have fallen off, there’s plastic flowers in the hanging baskets, litter on the lawns and blankets up to the windows of the private quarters and last night it was just about empty!
Halsall Church in the distance has a lovely spire
We thought that this was a Red Kite hovering and then we saw another one a few hundred yards away and we thought they were kites of the string and wind variety ...
… and then we saw what they really were - quite clever we thought - probably for scaring off the birds or perhaps even for keeping the rabbits off the farmers crops.
Ribble Fly Boat moored near Burscough
Bridge 35 has a handy rubbish skip and when the sky went very dark we thought we’d stay the night here but it soon brightened up and we set off once again eventually mooring up just before bridge 44 at Appley.
The weather has certainly broken now and is very unsettled so we’re going to crack on over the next week or so towards the midlands.
Just as we’re getting ready to pull the pins at Appley just after 8 yesterday (Tuesday) morning nb Meand’er went past us. We said that we’d be following in a few minutes and would join them at Dean Locks.
Waiting for the lock to empty at Henhurst Bottom Lock ...
… and passing CRT HQ Wigan as we approach the top lock ...
Looking back towards Wigan Junction after taking the sharp right-hand bend we have to wait above Poolstock Locks ...
… where as usual George finds some ladies to entertain - or perhaps they’re entertaining him! ...
… while I wait patiently for the two boats to come through ...
… and then George and Kevin (nb Meand’er) shoot the breeze over the garden lock gates while waiting for the bottom lock to fill.
We continued on and eventually moored up last night at one of our favourite mooring on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal … Pennington Flash, and spent a very pleasant couple of hours last evening with Sue and Kevin aboard RnR with a couple of bottles of wine - we’ve acknowledged them on several occasions when passing each other over the years but hadn’t had the opportunity to meet properly before now - enjoy the rest of the summer you two. 
The footbridge at Pennington Flash this morning at 06:45 (Wednesday).
It was supposed to be fine but cloudy this morning and rain later - but as usually happens it was actually the other way round, soon after we pulled the pins the rain came and just as we moored up east of Boothstown it stopped! It’s supposed to be hot and dry tomorrow when we’ll be continuing our journey south to Sale - we’ll soon see!
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