A room with a view

Riding over the Trent&Mersey

We sitting tonight in one of our most delightful ever moorings. It's a typically British summer evening; a warm sun is setting slowly over a pastoral setting, in the foreground the oak trees of a large country estate cast long shadows across the meadow; as you look into the middle distance the green fields, hedges and trees of the Cheshire plain take your view further and further west toward the hazy grey outlines of distant hills that could be as far away as North Wales. A tractor chops grass for hay, swallows swoop down to the river for flies and behind us the steep hillside of Mow Cop rises high to a monumental ruin on its summit.
It's hard to think of anywhere nicer to be; sitting on the tug deck, sipping a beer.
We are, for those who don't know their canal geography, up on the Macclesfield Canal. We swerved right off the top of Heartbreak Hill onto the canal at the switchback Hardings Wood junction where the Macclesfield twists back, runs parallel with the T&M and then climbs over it on the Red Bull* aqueduct.
It's a beautiful canal with fine views and proud, aristocratic stone bridges that are a far cry from the functional brick ones so familiar to the canal user. Tomorrow the summit of Mow Cop beckons - put your walking boots on, Brian!

PS Speaking of Red Bull, a perfect internet signal meant I could watch a great Lewis Hamilton drive, trouncing the Red Bulls and the sulky Spaniard as well!