hazelchaz | It was 9:29, 9:29 back street big city. The sun was going' down, there was music all around

Sunday in Cheshire, and back to London.

frostfox's house is in a quiet part of Cheshire, the salt mines make for peaceful neighbors. We'd shopped at Borders Saturday night, and I bought myself a copy of True Brit -- the story of Kal-El, Krypton's last child, landing in England and being raised by the Clark family. Diana Dougherty had recommended it to me, pointed out some of the jokes (like when Superman rescues the Rutles). Sue gave up on it halfway through, though, primarily because the art rubbed her the wrong way (it was an artist trying to do eccentric British superheros, trying to do it like XXX, where XXX is the British artist who does it best), and for the errors -- for example, they had cricket players in off-white, instead of white uniforms.

On Sunday, we went driving around, heading for the Anderton Boat Lift, which is the only operating boat life in the U.K., as well as being the first one ever built. There are canals and navigations (a Navigation is a canal with a current) throughout Cheshire, in fact some of them form a circuit called the Weaver Navigation. (Weaver as in weaving in and out of places, I guess.) Some of them go in a big ring, so you could rent a canal boat (sort of like a long skinny houseboat) for a weekend and just go from pub's dock to pub's dock until you make your way back to your starting point. But they're really hard to steer, esp. after a few pints.

If you have a canal at one elevation, and another at a different elevation, you might have a lock to get from one to the next. They pump water into the lock to bring the water level up to the higher one, and let it drain out to bring it down to the lower level. If your boat's riding in the lock, you get to go from one canal to the other.

A boat lift is related, but different. It's an elevator. This one has a water-filled bridge going from the upper canal/navigation level, then a hydraulic-lifted caisson (a big gondola full of water, basically) to go from the upper bridge level down to the lower canal level. It's an amazing thing. Check out their website for more info on this thing. We had decided we'd go and check it out, and ride a boat through it.

We got out to the place, got our tickets, and we had about an hour or so to kill before our scheduled trip. (There's a longer trip you can take that goes away and comes back; we just signed up for the trip down the boat lift.) We'd seen a pub on our way in, so we went and had lunch at the Stanley Arms. They have a dock so canal boats can stop at the pub, of course. (If you're wondering, it was the level that leads to the top end of the boat lift.)

I'd worn one of my colorful aloha shirts. So when I spilled a little Chicken Tikka Marsala on it, it was hardly noticeable... The inside was smokey, so we ate on one of their picnic tables out in the garden. When we were almost done, it started to rain, so we finished up inside. And when we exited the pub after eating our lunch, it had stopped raining again.

After lunch, we went on our boat lift ride. Since we were sitting down and not doing anything, I dozed off during the half-hour ride. I do that a lot -- that's why on that day when we were driving around, I took the back seat, so Lynn could sit up front with Sue. They could talk to each other, even when I fell asleep, and Lynn could see the scenery. Anyhow, after the boat ride, we checked out the visitors center and the exhibits. They had a maze for the kids to explore, and a water trough set-up that the kids could float sticks down; and lots of signs and displays explaining the whole restoration project and the operation of the boat lift. And, the gift shop. We found some interesting paper model kits -- you put the paper kit together, and it does something when you turn the (paper) crank. Like the little dog that wags its tail, and so forth. A self-contained project, and you can put it in an envelope and mail it to a kid or other relative. I picked one up, I've got someone in mind for it... We also had dessert in their cafeteria.

When we were driving around, I asked Sue to keep her eye open for a "Changed priorities ahead" sign, like I'd seen in Greenwich. No such luck -- that sign only appears after a construction or other project has changed how the lane markings work, and only for a limited time. Arrgh. I bet they could move a few of them if they sold the signs in the shops that cater to tourists...

We went to B&Q, which looks suspiciously like Home Depot. At least, they use an awful lot of orange. The typography isn't quite the same, though. We bought some plastic bins so that Sue could ship us our dirty laundry on Monday. While we were there, I saw a leaflet that said "Hippo bag -- use it like a skip! No more trips to the tip!" It helps if you know that sklp = dumpster, and tip = dump. (In the pre-convention chatter online, someone had talking about renting a skip, and was told by a Bostonian, No, you don't want to rent Skip... Skip Morris is an east-coast fan.) The idea is, you get one of their cubic-yard bags, fill it, then call them up and they come and haul it away. They also have larger size(s).

We bought some gaffer tape, which looks a lot like a roll of black duct tape, and back at Sue's house I packed up all our dirty laundry (except the stuff for the dry cleaners). It's only taken 10 or 11 kg out of our luggage, but our bags are a lot less bulky now. We zipped close the accordian-expansion feature.

I tried checking the UPS website, and it wouldn't let me schedule a pick-up at Sue's Manchester office and give my USA company's UPS account. So we'll try to sort it out on Monday, me on my phone and her at the office.

We learned something interesting about the job that

frostfox is starting in two weeks: since they're a small outfit, and it's a long way to get to anywhere that serves lunch, the company will cook lunch to order for their employees. You just tell them at the beginning of the week what you'd like each day, and your lunch is ready to eat as soon as your lunch hour begins. Sounds nifty!

Sue took me and the luggage to the station, and then went back for

library_lynn. While she was on the road, I called Lynn on her mobile and told her to hide the bracelet for Sue in the fridge. Then they came back, we got on the train, and we were off again.

To get down to London, we continued on the Manchester-Chester line to Chester. Our itinerary showed us taking the train to Chester, another to Crewe, and then a third train from Crew to Londoon Euston. Chester was another big Victorian railway station, just a delight to see, and we made our way onto a southbound Virgin train... which was due to go all the way to Euston. So our baggage went into the baggage carriage, and we looked for car "G." There were two G carriages -- one of them was also marked "K." The "G/K" car that had the snack store also had some ill-behaved children; their parents weren't doing a thing about their carrying on and screaming, and we decided we'd move down to the other G car. Lynn reported later, when she went looking for some crisps, that the car was deserted except for the family with the kids...

On the ride from Chester to Crewe, I gave

frostfox a bell to tell her we'd made it onto our London train. She thanked me for the bracelet, said she'd fixed herself some tea right after dropping us off and found the present right away.

When we got to Crewe, we figured out why the Northwich station agent had reserved us seats on a different Crewe-Euston train: because it would leave Crewe before the one we were on would. Well, it would only save us about 20 minutes, and we already had all our luggage loaded: so we just sat tight and rode the one train down to London.

Getting into London Euston was like coming back to a familiar face. (I'm still kicking myself for not going down to King's Cross station and getting a picture of the platform 9 3/4 sign, btw... sorry about that if you were counting on a shot.

colleency, did you get a picture when you were in London?) Lynn was starving at that point, so we finally succumbed and went to a franchised American outfit: the Burger King that was in the station. We knew we'd get what we needed, we had dinner -- by this time it's after 21:00 -- and headed back down Euston Street to the familiar Belgrove Hotel.

I took a shower Sunday night -- I was hot and sticky from wrestling the luggage around, and pulling the trolley up inclines, and so forth -- and I noticed the loo for room 26 had the same hot-on-the-right thing that Sue's house had. So that explains why the water never got hot when I washed my hands. Old habits are hard to break, though; I'd still reach for the left tap, even knowing it was the cold and not the hot.