Wednesday, 23rd October
Shush and Bendigedig moved on, but we stayed, as there are water and rubbish facilities here and we particularly wanted to use the water point to wash the boat all over and have a good clean up ready for the winter. It's a good place to do this as there are few boats about and we can turn the boat around and do both sides. So we got everything off the roof--coal, wood, ladders, tv aerial, hose pipe, etc.--and gave it a good dowsing. We washed both sides and looked very smart. Trev put everything back on the roof, making sure we had enough room left for twelve bags of coal we've ordered from the coalman at St. Martin's.

Then we set off along the canal. There are only seven miles of navigable canal at the moment. It is slowly being restored, but it's a long and expensive job.

You can read all about the Montgomery Canal area here

We went through the Graham Palmer Lock and enjoyed watching an RAF helicopter on a training flight. It flew under the electricity wires. Then we moored up at the Perry Aqueduct, all on our own. All this beautiful scenery and peace and quiet was all ours.

Thursday, 24th, Friday 25th October
We went on down to the end of the Monty today, meeting very few boats. The weather was appalling, very windy and wet, and I stayed indoors for most of it. We went under the busy A5 without hardly noticing the lorries and the cars dashing about above, bent on more worldly affairs than, hopefully, we shall ever have to worry about again! There was another flight of three locks, the Aston Locks, and then we moored up in Maesbury, right behind Ian and Penny on "Spadger". We went on board and had a coffee and caught up with the news. We hadn't seen them since we were all moored up in Llangollen last winter.

In the evening, Trev and I went for an excellent meal at "The Navigation". My only complaint would be that there was too much to eat! The hosts are charming, the food was delicious and different, and it was a good evening. They do an 'early bird' menu, two courses for 12.95 GBP between 6.00 and 7.00 p.m. Tuesdays to Fridays. This is what we had, though of course we did our usual thing of ordering drinks and brandies and coffee, and the bill was considerably more............

You can read all about The Navigation here

We stayed here for two nights. It's a pleasant place to stay. There is a good shop/Post Office/cafe/self catering accommodation place at the end of the canal, with internet access. Maesbury is really off the beaten track for boaters as far as shops go, so this relatively new enterprise is very welcome.

You can read all about the Maesbury shop here

Saturday, 26th October
We set off to the very end of the navigable canal, to turn. Ian and Penny came with us, and I did the lift bridge for us all. It's hard work. I'd been turning it for ages before Trev called to me to say that nothing was happening. I had to keep stopping and rewinding before it would go right up. There were two boats, breasted up, moored right on the mooring studs for the lift bridge which seemed to be there long term. They were really in the way, and made getting on and off the boat very difficult. Trev had a problem getting past them in the strong wind. I wonder why they are allowed to moor there, especially in such an awkward place, when other people get told to move on?

We left Penny and Ian at Maesbury, and we went on back up the Monty to moor at Perry Aqueduct again. Tomorrow we go back up the flight and on to the Llangollen Canal, ever nearer our winter destination. On the way we passed "Saturn" moored up at the bottom of the top Aston lock.

If you don't know what a fly boat is, you can read about it here.

Sunday, 27th October
We went up to the Weston Arm to water up, and "Shush" and "Bendigedig" were there, waiting for the locks to open. Colin appeared at noon, and we all followed each other up and back on to the Golly. We turned left and set off for New Marton Locks, about three miles. There was a queue here, three boats were waiting to go up ahead of us, and more than that were waiting to come down. The Llangollen canal is really busy this week, it being half term, and one sees an interesting variety of methods of steering, including the rather novel crab approach, whicxh involves coming along the canal sideways........There is also the rather sad habit of some cruisers of just taking the rachet off the lock paddle and allowing it to crash down, risking ruining the paddle and holding everyone up whilst it is repaired, but I suppose that doesn't matter when you've only hired a boat for a week, and will be miles away soon. (Oh dear, I am becoming a grumpy old woman!)

It took two hours to get through the two locks at Marton, and then we moored up ab out half a mile above them, in one of our favourite moorings, provided by the Shropshire Union Canal Society. The Society is run by volunteers and they have done some great work on the canal, particularly in providing moorings in attractive spots. Thank you SUCS!

Here is the Shropshire Union Canal Society's website

Monday, 28th October
We were up early this morning as we had an appointment with the coalman. He arrived ten minutes early, but we were ready at Bridge 17. he backed his van down the towpath, loaded on twelve bags of coal, and was off again in less than five minures. Hopefully this coal willt ake us through to Christmas. Then on we went, across Chirk aqueduct, ready to do the Chirk Tunnel. There were a couple of other boats waiting, and we waioted and waited, and the boats kept on coming through the tunnel and there was never a long enough gap to allow us to start off going thorugh. In the end, the whole place was becoming gridlocked, as boats came across the aqueducyt into the basin waiting to go into the tuennel and boats came out of the tunnel and into the basin, wanting to go acrsoo the aquedust. Eventually, a boater walked through the tunnel and asked them to stop coming through so that we could go through and get our of the way. There was another half dozen boats waiting at the other end of the tunnel to come our way, so it was a good job they were stopped or we would have been in a right pickle!!

The weather closed in and we were glad to stop on yet another SUCS mooring at Froncysyllte (Try saying that after a drink or two!--or even before, actually!) Shortly after we'd moored up, we had a snow storm, and it became very cold, the coldest it's been so far this autumn. We stoked the fire up and had big bowls of delicious home made soup--very Enid Blyton!

Tuesday, 29th October
The weather started off absolutely brilliantly. There was a sharp frost and the sky was blue and clear. The air was sharp and it was exhilerating. There was a covering of snow on the tops and it was one of those days when it was good to be alive, and certainly a vast improvement on teaching or running a guest house!!!!

We were up early, to try to avoid the crowds on the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. We left the mooring shortly after 7.00 a.m. and went through the Froncysyllte lift bridge, and filled up with water. Then on to Black Prince boatyard at Trevor where we filled up with diesel, 75p per litre. It's not cheap, but it was a lot cheaper than the fuel elsewhere. This is our last lot of fuel before the new laws come into force in November, which will end the tax relief on red diesel. We don't use diesel whilst we're moored at Llangollen, we pay for electricity. So when we leave next Spring, it will be a whole new world as far as buying fuel is concerned.

Then we set off on the last five miles of the Llangollen Canal. It gets harder and harder to move as one gets nearer the source, due to the current, and at times the boat hardly moves. This is the prettiest part of the whole canal, indeed of the whole canal system, in my opinion, for what it's worth! The hills open up before you, there are long reaching views and the whole area is idyllic. This is where I would like to come and live one day, though Trev tells me he's never leaving the boat! There were loads of hire boats travelling along here, but they were all being carefully steered, and we had no problems.

We moored eventually at Bryn Howel. We can't go up to Llangollne until tomorrow, so we're in pole position to move on in the morning. I can't imagine how it will be tomorrow. Apparently there are thirteen boats with winter moorings this year, and the moorings are all taken at the moment by holiday boats. So it sounds as though it will be chaotic. Watch this space! We were really badly hit whilst moored here. A hire boat camwe along and aimed straight for us. Instead of slowing down or reversing, the steerer just kept on coming straight for us and crashed into the fron of us. It was quite alarming, and I opened the side hatch. The steerer apologised, but I explained to her that it's really most distressing when one owns one's boat to have it hit at speed. I think some boaters think it's a contact sport, and maybe programmes such as Waterworld on television haven't helped by treating collisions in a rather flippant way. I shallbe glad to get to Llangollena dn the relative safety of our mooring, though there's still a lot of boats about, and will be until the end of the week.

In the evening we met Judy and Eric at The Bryn Howel Hotel, and had a bar snack together. the food there is good, and we spent a very pleasant evening together. It was a good start to our winter sojourn in Llangollen.

Thursday, 30th October
When we came out of Bryn Howel last night, it was snowing, and this morning there was a couple of inches on the ground. Everywhere looked so pretty. We were up early. We had decided the best plan of attack for the last couple of miles into Llangollen was to set off early, hoping to get up there before too many of the hire boaters started coming down. The plan worked well. I walked ahead and rang Trev to let him know if any boats were coming done the one way parts and we got into Llangollen without any further adventures. Then the fun started! There were eight boats waiting to leave Llangollen, and they waited for Trev to arrive, before setting out. But just as the first boat was going into the narrows, a message came that three more boats were coming up! By this time the eight boats waiting to go down had positioned themselves all ready to go. So there was a row of boats moored along the side, there was a line of boats trying to go down the canal and three boats trying to get up. The canal is very narrow here, and I would never have believed that three boats could fit across the canal, but they did! It took about half an hour to sort it all out and when the fun had died down, we moved on to"our" mooring.

We were lucky that it had just been vacated by a hire boat, and so all is well, we feel happy and settled for the winter. "Bendigedig" and "Spadger" had come up yesterday and were already tied up in their favourite places. "Shush" and "Cartref" came up after us--and after all the gridlock--but there was nowhere for them to moor, as their favourite spots were taken by hire boats. Eventually one hirer moved, and Cartref could move up. Alan waited for the other hirer to go and then he came up. There's a new winter moorer moored up ahead, and so sadly Liz and Tay on "Constance Irene" can 't go where they were last year, and I think they will have to stay behind us. It will all sort itself out eventually, but it would be good if BW could help everyone next year, to save this mix up and uncertainty. We're all assured of a mooring, but not a special position, and it's quite important to all of us to be in the place we like. We're here for five months and pay quite a lot of money for it.

As we were coming through the narrows, there was a huge broken branch lying on the towpath. The weight of the snow had brought it down. After we had moored up, Trev went back with his bow saw and a trolley and spent hours sawing it up and carrying it back to the boat. We shall sink very soon I fear, with all the wood and the coal on the roof. However, this part of the canal isn't very deep, maybe three feet, so we wouldn't drown! We had a bacon sandwich and a coffee and looked forward with eager anticipation to renewing old friendships, joining in the local activities and a change of pace.

We've really had a wonderful year; two months in the southern hemisphere, crossing the Channel and cruising through France and Belgium on "Merlot" with Sheridan and Ron, I had a week in Kent with my friend Mary visiting National Trust properties, Trev did his long distance walk--The Tour de Mont Blanc--for two weeks, and then I joined him for two more weeks in Samoens in the French Alps. We are SO lucky, and love it all!

Thank you for reading my website this year. If anything exciting happens I will write it up here, but we don't have any plans for anything else at the moment. I hope you've had a good year and look forward to hearing from you if you have the time or the inclination to email me!

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