Wednesday, 1st April
A perfect day to set off on our summer cruise. The sun was shining, the sky was high and the clouds were blue. Usually, I leave Llangollen with a heavy heart, but today I was ready to go. We've been moored up for five months and it's seemed a long time. Last year, of course, we were away for two months, and so the winter seemed to pass quicker.

Over the last few days we have done everything we could to get ready for our trip--we've washed both sides of the boat and turned it round so that we're facing the right way for the off, bought enough shopping to feed the five thousand, checked everything that needed checking and had a good tidy up. We only have one bag of coal and very few logs on the roof now. That's the way we want it, as we shall soon be able to let the fire out altogether.

So, off we set. I went ahead on the bike to check for any oncoming boats through "the narrows" where there is only room for one boat--and discovered the bike had a puncture. Trev had checked it yesterday, pumped up the tyres and it was fine. So I pushed the bike and 'phoned Trev from the other end to say it was clear to pass through. When he caught up, we put the bike back on the boat and cruised on. At Wenffrwyd Bridge, there is another narrow part, so I walked ahead to check, and again we were lucky, there was no one in sight. In fact we only met a couple of boats coming our way all the way down to Trevor basin. Here we turned sharp right and across the Pontycysslte Aqueduct. which never ceases to amaze us. As we crossed, the weather was much better than when we had come up at the end of October--then we had snow. But today we had wonderful views along the Dee valley.

At Froncyssyllte there is a lift bridge, which I opened and closed, and then on through the Whitehouse Tunnel (191 yards) and Chirk Tunnel (459 yards) and over Chirk Aqueduct, which must feel a poor relation in comparison with its more important cousin, but is nevertheless a special experience. After another mile or so, we moored up at The Poacher's Pocket at Gledrid, to wait for our friends, Judy & Eric. They live near Llangollen and moor their boat at Chirk Marina and are coming to join us tomorrow. We shall moor together tomorrow evening, and then travel on to Ellesmere on Friday. On Saturday, we shall part company; they will go back to Chirk Marina, we shall continue on down the canal. Judy and Eric just want to give their boat a short run, it will be its first outing since last Autumn.

I'm also going to visit "Calfire" whilst we're here. Their warehouse is just a few hundred yards from the canal. They sell lots of things for fires--guards, companion sets, polish, etc. They also sell Ecofans, and Barry Loynes, the managing director, repairs them. He's already done ours once, and now it needs another expert hand to put it back into working order. An Ecofan is a small steel fan which sits on top of the solid fuel stove and pushes the heat down the boat. (Well that is the theory, Trev is sceptical about its efficiency.) It is driven by the heat from the fire. I try to remember to take it off the stove as we travel along, but fail miserably, and so it gets knocked off, falls to the floor and stops working.

So, here we are, moored up for our first night out of Llangollen in five months--well not OUR first night, but the boat's! It's lovely to be off again, going where the fancy takes us.

8 miles
1 Lift Bridge
2 Tunnels
2 Aqueducts

Thursday, 2nd April
We had planned to stay on the same moorings today whilst we waited for Judy and Eric. This would also give Trev a chance to go for a final walk with the Llangollen Walking Group, with whom he has walked all winter. And it gave me a whole day on my own! I got on with my sewing. First I finished the project I made when I went on the Day Course last weekend, and then I got on with a quilt I'm making. Trev has renewed a friendship from his running days more than thirty years ago, a person called Anita. She is a patchworker and quilter and she has invited me to use her sewing room when we go through Stone on The Trent and Mersey Canal. That will be in a couple of weeks time, and I want to get the double sized quilt ready to assemble.Then I can put it together at her house. It's not easy assembling an 80" by 100" quilt on a 2'6" by 4'0" table! So I'm keen to have it ready to do at Anita's.

The walking group returned at about three o'clock and I joined them for a drink at "The Poacher's Pocket". Then Judy and Eric came through on their boat "Mary Constance", but there was nowhere for them to moor, so we all went on to just above New Marton Locks and moored there. As I had had a free day, I had cooked a meal for all of us, and we all ate on board our boat.
2 miles

Friday, 3rd April
There was a thick mist this morning and it was cold. Trev and I set off around ten o'clock and filled up with water at the water point a couple of hundred yards ahead. There was a Maestermyn hire boat moored right on the water point. A man on another boat said that the Maestermyn boat had been there for two nights, despite having been told that it was a water point and not for long term mooring..............Judy and Eric joined us and we went down through the two Marton Locks. The top one was easy, but there was a queue above and below the lower lock, and we waited about twenty minutes to lock down.

The morning continued cold and misty, we were glad we'd kept the fire in. There were very few boats out and it was a lovely peaceful trip. We offloaded our rubbish at the rubbish disposal point at BW's Ellesmere yard, and then turned left to moor up in the Ellesmere Arm. We were lucky, there was plenty of room and we moored one in front of the other. Judy and Eric did lunch for all of us. The sun came out and it was really warm in the afternoon. In the evening we had an excellent Chinese take away.

7 miles
2 locks

Saturday, 4th April
We had coffee with Judy and Eric and then bid them farewell. They set off back for Chirk Marina. We shall see them again in July, as they have generoulsy invoted us to go and stay with them whilst the Eistedfodd is on. We shall look forward to that. We spent the day in Ellesmere. We went for a walk to the new visitor centre by the mere. It's looking good, and I think it will improve the water frontage there no end. There is also a big new development akind place along the Ellesmere canal arm, with a Tesco store, shops restaurants and housing planned. We wonder what it will be like when it's all finished. At the moment, it's very peaceful moored along the Arm, but mayb e it will be noisy when all of the development is finished. The Tesco will be very useful.

In the evening we went for a meal at the Black Lion, but it didn't quite have the usual zing, and we wished we hadn't bothered. Maybe it was just us....

Sunday 5th April
I was awake early for once and we set off about 8.30. First we had to extricate ourselves from the Ellesmere Arm, which is a cul-de-sac. There is space at the far end to wind, but it's really quite tricky, so, as we were nearer the start than the end of the arm, Trev decided to back up to the main canal. There was a frost this morning, but the sun was out as we set off and before long it was a lovely warm day. We travelled along slowly, savouring the peace and pleasure of being out on the canal again. We had planned to go to moor at the end of the Prees Branch, but as we were travelling along we were enticed by a lovely mooring between bridges 49 and 50, in full sun and with good tv reception. So we pulled in at 10 o'clock and moored up. What a lazy day--I love it!

I have had no internet reception since we left Llangollen, which has been rather frustrating. I don't remember it being this bad when we came up the Llangollen Canal. I'm wondering if there is something the matter with my Three dongle. I shall have to be patient and wait until we get closer to a town, and see if it works then. I've decided to keep a spreadsheet of what reception we get for the Orange mobile phones, the Three internet aqccess and the television at each place we moor. I think it will be useful on future occasions.

We walked back along the canal to Hampton Bridge and then about a mile along the road, to go for a lunchtime drink at The Sun, at Welshampton. It was a waste of time; sadly the pub has gone the way of many pubs and has closed. Now Trev thinks there is a business opportunity for us--a country pub serving food and doing B&B. I thought I had given up work for good...............

So I spent the day sewing and reading, cooking and watching tv. I'm really enjoying "The Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency". I've read all of the books and the television version is bringing it all to life. Sometimes it spoils one's image of a book to see it on the screen, but this is even better than the books, I think.

4 miles
1 tiny tunnel! (Ellesmere Tunnel, 87 yards)

Monday, 6th April
I was awake early again this morning. Trev's always up early, so we set off about eight o'clock. Our first stop was at Bettisfield for water, just about a mile away.

We had a new washing machine about a month ago. The old one had served us well from when we first came on the boat, having to endure some very irregular electric supplies. It finally gave up on us whilst we were in Llangollen, which was fortuitous, as it's not easy to remove an old washing machine and replace it whilst living aboard. We were in the newsagents in Llangollen one day and asked him if he knew of anyone who repaired washing machines. Not only did he give us the name of a person whom he knew, but two other people in the shop also each had a contact. One of them even took me to her house to get the telephone number! We rang the man recommended by the newsagent and it turned out that he lived just the other side of the canal from where we moored. He came to see if he could repair the old one, but he couldn't. However, it just so happened that he worked at the Indesit factory and so he brought us a new one, installed it and took the old one away. That was a stroke of luck.

The reason for mentioning any of this is that so far we have only used the new one on mains electric, whilst we were moored in Llangollen. This morning was the real test--would it work from the boat's engine power? YES! it did and worked well. So I did two wash loads to celebrate. Sad how such a trivial item can be such big news, isn't it?

As we travelled along, I also ironed and made soup and did some sewing--got to get that quilt finished before I get to Anita's! I've had the computer on as we've travelled along, but haven't been able to get any internet reception. I keep checking at various points along the way.

We made good headway today, and were glad we started early whilst the weather was good, because it began to rain just after we moored up. We had a long day, travelling for about six hours altogether. We went through the Grindley Brook staircase and on down through the lower three locks and then onto Povey's, Willeymoor, Quoisey's and Marbury locks, to moor eventually at Wrenbury. Tomorrow we shall go through the four Hurleston Locks and then we shall be at the end of the Llangollen Canal.

In the evening we walked to The Dusty Milller for a drink, only to find it is closed on Mondays! We're not doing very well with pubs at the moment. However, The Cotton Arms was open, so we had a glass or two there, then went back to eat on the boat.

15 miles
10 locks
6 lift bridges

Tuesday, 7th April
We set off around ten o'clock and went on down towards The Junction of the Llangollen Canal with The Shropshire Union. We went through the newly replaced Wrenbury Church lift bridge and then on through pretty, if flat, countryside to pass through the three Baddiley locks and the two Swanley locks. We moored up on one of our favourite moorings, between bridges four and five. Shortly after we had moored up, it started to rain, and a strong wind blew, so we were glad we had stopped. At last I got internet reception and picked up over thirty emails, more than half of which were offering to enlarge various parts of the anatomy or sell me pills and potions.

5 miles
5 locks
1 lift bridge

Summer Cruise 2009

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