At Middlewich, the canal meets up with the Trent & Mersey again and we turned right to go south towards Sandbach and Kidsgrove. This section runs through areas where there were many salt mines and subsidence means that the canal bed has sunk and the banks have constantly had to be raised. As a result, the canal is a lot deeper than normal.
At Wheelock there are CRT services and we passed several moored boats including a rather tatty cruiser with two men in the stern. As we started up the Wheelock flight of 8 'paired' (that is, single locks set side by side) locks Blue Adeline went aground on the cill coming out of one lock. We'd never experience this before and were at a loss to know what to do, trying three of us at once on the bow to float her off but to no avail - she was stuck!
A passer-by went for help and the two men from the cruiser came and made various suggestions, but they'd obviously been imbibing during the day and couldn't think or talk straight. Fortunately, the owner of the lock side cottage appeared and sensibly advised that we must let water out of the lock above to refloat the boat. However as he was directing us, the two drunks became incensed that he'd taken over their (to them) starring role in our rescue and started abusing him. At the same time, they were attempting to bring their cruiser up the second of the paired locks, but in such a shambolic fashion that they managed to wrench the aerial off its roof. The situation became even more farcical when Mike remonstrated with them and they turned on him (but kept a safe distance, on the other side of the lock). Much shouting and swearing across the lock followed, including threats to kill Mike, to which he simply said "Come on, then" as befitted an East Ender and someone who as a small boy had once been ticked off by Ronnie Kray for trying to 'protect' his car. The drunks then immediately started to apologise and hopped around even more precariously as they tried to retrieve their boat from the lock.
Meanwhile, Blue Adeline was afloat at last and proceeding up the flight, followed by Romajech. At the top, we found a quiet spot and moored for the night, grateful for the chance to wind down after all the excitement.
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