The view from the Aqueduct is decidedly better than from the doghouse

Monday 16th May to Sunday 22nd May 2011


29 Miles, 10 Locks, 2 Tunnel, 2 Lift Bridges – for this week
Totals: 453 Miles, 414 Locks, 13 Tunnels, 10 Lift Bridge, 9 Swing Bridges


We continued our journey from very early Monday morning – we needed to moor up early next to Chirk railway station in order to catch the train to Wrexhem to pick up the laptop.

Diane can find a chocolate factory anywhere

Once we have a plan of what we need to achieve, we generally achieve it – with time to spare. I must say there is an inner feeling of being pleased with ones lot in life when we are waiting for the train knowing that we do not have to catch it to get to work – time is our own.

Into Wrexham once again; a bit of a chance to have a look around – it is quite a pretty place; visited through the markets – both outdoor and the indoor ones (3 in total).

Picked the laptop up (no charge), but forked out for the new printer/scanner and a new TV (the old one has decided not to let the DVD player do its thing). Not a heavy load to get back to Chirk. Enough time to cruise on up to the Froncysyllte Aqueduct (not the famous one).

Tuesday was do-it day – we were determined to complete the journey up to Llangollen – the current against you; narrow canal; shallow canal – there were any number of times that we thought we were actually going backwards – no headway being made at all.


Back home again

Eventually we got to the marina and (self congratulatory time) I managed to reverse the boat into the mooring perfectly – 2 minutes to tie up.

Concentration plus - reversing into the space behind at the right of the picture

Llangollen is such a pretty town but quickly you gain the knowledge that it is very much a tourist town also – the souvenirs; tourist train rides; canal rides; lovely walks – but very glad that we had made the journey to the end.

Horseshoe Falls - worth the walk to see the beauty of the area

We met a lovely couple on nb Longships – Helen and Michael, as well as their daughter Felicity – and sat outside on each day with them chatting as you do when you meet new people. On the second day a fellow wandering past asked me if I was off Gypsy Rover and commented that I couldn’t be getting much of a TV picture – I agreed, none at all – rotate the antenna by 90 degrees to fix it – the polarity from the transmitter on the hill (I could see the thing) was 90 degrees off. Fixed it – thanks Chris (off nb Go Fadalach).

48 hours was our lot there and we set off on Thursday – early as usual – feeling good that the "tide" would be going our way – through the narrows easily and onto Trevor for diesel (87p and self-declare) – we had only used 70 litres in 3 weeks – very happy with that.

Reversing back from the short arm to wind and face the Pontcysyllte we were caught by the wind coming straight over it and couldn’t get around for love nor money – eventually Diane jumped off the front and we were able to pull her around.

Waited a few minutes for the trough to clear and we were then off on the return journey over the famous structure – Diane at the tiller – standing on the port side is much less exposed to the drop on the other side – but she did well overcoming the feeling of being so close to the edge.




Just to prove that she has all of the skills - that is a 120' drop on the left

As with the travelling over it two days earlier the views are magnificent and it really is a marvellous piece of engineering skill and implementation (over 200 years old).

We had decided earlier in the trip that on the return leg we would head down the Montgomery for a look – I was apprehensive as I was not sure of the phone signal for work.

Down on Friday morning, so if there was a problem we could just spend the weekend there – shouldn’t have worried – almost perfect signal everywhere.

Went as far as Queen’s Head – pub was nice and large portions on Friday.

Then down to Maesbury Marsh as Sunday lunch had been highly recommended by Chris the lockkeeper at Frankton – it was nice, but we thought that we have had better value for money – didn’t stop us from enjoying the quality.

Making their home on a new section of watered canal
a good hiss returned to them was enough to allow us to walk past

We had arrived down here on Saturday and went for a walk to see how the canal restorations were proceeding – very well indeed – a lot of hard work has been put in.

the next section nearing completion -
so much work done - so much more still to do

a new bridge hole almost ready for rewatering

There is a wonderful little café about 200 metres down from Bridge 79 on the towpath side where the hot chocolate is the best we have tasted and the scones are to die for – need to be quick as that is how they go – Canal Centre.



A very engaging Welsh fisherman

There really are decent sized fish in there

Watched the end of the Spanish Grand Prix – Webber 4th – disappointing after promising so much with pole); then watched Final Score (BBC1) for the final round in the Premier League – 14 changes of position on the table for the bottom teams trying to avoid relegation – all in 90 minutes – it was exciting stuff.

Match-of-the-Day to see all of the goals and of course to see United presented with the silverware (again) – sad that Chelsea had to sack Ancelotti – that really is the pits.

After a week off work to enjoy the sights it was back to work in the morning.

We did see one funny bit of information that came over twitter (on Monday), that I have to include here.

Our lovely son, Mitchell, adores his sister, Sam, so much and wanted to avoid her feeling bad, that he very kindly waited 4 days before he told her that the bread that she had made a sandwich with, was the same bread that our dog, Banjo, was seen nibbling on – he has found a way to jump up onto the kitchen counter.

My guess is that the doghouse is pretty full at the moment.