Saturday, 18th July
Today Trev was at Nantwich railway station early to meet friends Alice and Gove, who were coming to stay with us for two nights. They live in The States, and have been in Dublin for a conference. They caught the overnight ferry to Holyhead, which woke them, and all the other passengers, at the ungodly hour of 4.00 p.m. to make sure they were off and out of the way. They seemed pretty lively to me considering they'd had so little sleep.

After some coffee, we set off to give them a cruise. It was their first time on board a narrowboat, and we wanted them to enjoy it, so we took them along the Llangollen Canal as far as Whitchurch. We had planned to stay the first night in Wrenbury and eat at The Dusty Miller, but when I rang the pub there were no tables available, so we went on to The Swan at Marbury, and had an excellent meal. The next day we had a slow start, as they were tired and we didn't have too far to go, and we moored in the arm at Whitchurch. It's quite a walk into Whitchurch, so we ate on board, and played a game which Alice and Gove had brought with them--Phase 10--it was good fun. Their train left early in the morning, so it really was a flying visit, but it was good to catch up with them. We hadn't seen them since 2001.

Now we had a couple of days to wait before Cherry arrived for five nights. She wanted to do the Montgomery Canal with us. So we bided our time in the Whitchurch Arm--well that was the plan, and it worked for the first night. But in the evening of the second day, large numbers of young people were drifting by carrying copious quantities of alcohol, and I became a little unsettled. There was a lot of noise emanating from an area a little way from our boat, and then a boat came past us, and the man on it said he was going because there was a large group of young people congregating on the field nearby and it looked like there was going to be a party. So I persuaded Trev to move, he thought I was worrying unnecessarily, and we moored on the main canal nearby.

About one o'clock, I was sure I heard someone on the boat and looked out of the side hatch. There was a young person going by, and it seemed to me that he was carrying our barge pole. Trev shot out of bed and went out in his bare feet to recue the barge pole, when he noticed it was still on the roof! Oh dear, my imagination had run away with me.

Wednesday, 22nd July
Cherry arrived at Whitchurch station and Trev went to meet her. We had a cup of coffee together and then we set off for Ellesmere. The weather was pretty awful, and Trevor got soaked, so we took him out to The Black Lion to say thank you. Even better, he paid!

Thursday was a much better day. After a walk round Ellesmere, we went on along the canal to Frankton locks to wait for Colin the lockie to lock us down. The locks are manned between 12.00 and 2.00 each day and you have to book a passage in advance. Colin always has a story to tell. This time it was that all the stop planks had been stolen, so if there was a breach or a problem, there was no way they could shut the canal off and prevent the water from escaping. We were second down and the water was low. The boat grounded in the pound at the bottom of the locks, but one way or another I managed to get it going again and eventually we were through the four locks and onto the Monty.

We were really lucky with the weather for the time we were on the Monty, the sun shone most of the time. The first day we went all the way to Maesbury and on the way saw the empty shelter where the stop planks should have been. This is such a rural canal, it's almost unbelievable that anyone should bother to come out so far to commit a crime. We moored up opposite The Navigation pub. This time Cherry treated us all and we had an excellent meal. We all felt it was one of the best meals we had had in a very long time, and I urge you to go if you're in the area.

The Navigation Inn, Maesbury--website

The Montgomery Canal is still being restored and where we had moored was near the end of this particular navigable stretch. There are other stretches further down which have been restored and are in water, but they do not as yet connect up. A lot of money is needed to finish the job and I doubt that we shall ever be able to cruise all the way to the end. It will happen one day, but not in our lifetime.

The next day we walked on along the canal past the current limit of navigation. The canal is restored here, and in water for another mile or so, but there is nowhere to turn round, so it cannot be used yet. However, this new part represents a tremendous amount of work. Last time we were down here it wasn't finished and there was no water in it. Now the bridges are finished, there is a new lift bridge in place and it all looks ready to use. We walked on past all of this as we wanted to show Cherry what it looked like before any restoration work had begun, as it is quite amazing how much has been achieved by volunteer labour and dedicated people.

Then we walked back up to the Post office and community shop at Maesbury and had a coffee, before returning to Liberty Belle. We set off for the furthermost point of the navigable canal, turned and then we were on our way back.We travelled as far as Queen's Head and moored up below Aston Locks for the night. It had to be my turn to treat everyone eventually, and so we all went to the Queen's Head pub. Queen's Head seems to be the name of the area, as well as the name of the pub. The next day we reluctantly made our way back to Frankton locks and waited for the lockie to let us through.

We'd had a wonderful three days on the Monty, it was so peaceful and pretty, far removed from the mayhem of the Llangollen canal, which is so busy at this time of year. We hadn't been on the Montgomery canal in summertime before and the foliage and vegetation were so abundant, it seemed like a different world. There was very little traffic on the canal, but one man we passed said "It's the African Queen down there", and we couldn't work out what he meant. We looked for a boat called The African Queen all the way down and back and never saw it. I suggested that it might have passed us when we were moored up or at the pub, but eventually Cherry worked out what he meant. He was referring to the film, where apparently there is a scene where a man is hauling a boat through high reeds, just like those on the Monty. What a good job she'd seen the film, or we'd never have known what he was on about!

That night we moored in Ellesmere again, and Cherry insisted we went out to eat again, and she paid. I think she's scared of my cooking! On Sunday, 26th July, we carried on back towards Whitchurch, and moored at the top of the Prees Branch. This is a lovely spot to moor, but it's at the beginning of a long straight stretch of canal, and when the hire boaters, and, to be fair, some of the private boaters,see this lovely straight piece of canal, they open up the engine and roar away. This causes our boat to rock about, but Trev moored us up using springs--when he anchors each of the ropes front and back in two places so that it holds us steady.

Monday, 27th July
Today we got going early to get Cherry into Whitchurch for her 1.30 train. There is a bus from near the canal to the station and Trev and Cherry caught that. We stayed in the Whitchurch Arm today and had a rest. We'd had a busy week with visitors and it was good to catch our breath.

Tuesday, 28th July
We went on back towards Ellesmere and moored in the same spot by the Prees Branch, and then on Wednesday we went on to Ellesmere and moored in the arm. On Friday we go into the dry dock at Ellesmere to "black our bottom". It's not really the bottom we black, it's the sides from the gunwhale down to the base. On Wednesday, we walked round to the dry dock to see if there was anything we needed to know, and discovered that we could go into the dock a day early, on Thursday, which was good news as it gave us extra time to do the work.

SummerCruise 2009

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