May 2013

I'm going to bury my head and pretend
it never happened

30th Move boat to the A5 bridge outside Chirk in readiness for Peter and Di arriving. We all went for a meal at the Poachers Inn to celebrate Peter finishing his degree! Afterwards we walked the Chirk aqueduct
and the tunnel.


29th Up early to turn the boat at a winding hole while the canal was quiet. When we opened the doors Benny rushed out and did a spectacular dive straight into the canal, expecting the towpath to be on the same side as when he went to bed.  Luckily he's a good swimmer, and was hauled out with no harm done, except to his dignity.

28th  Rain, rain, go away, come again another ...year.  Another cold wet day, so we returned to Chirk Castle to do the inside tour.  Had fun trying on chain mail and trying our hands at sword fighting.

Amazing facts

27th  Walked over aqueduct [Jean hyperventilating all the way]  We're waiting until  Sue, Dave,Peter and Di come at the weekend before taking the boat over.

Memorial to Froncysllte Lime kilns

 Interesting visitor centre, and several canal-side sculptures

26th  Jean back from enjoyable visit to Alex, Guillaume and Louis in France, feeling guilty because weather there was much better than in England

Louis enjoying the sunshine

22nd - 24th In common with the previous times Jean has gone away, the weather has been abysmal! Very cold, windy and wet. I didn't expect to still be chopping wood and emptying ashes every day by this time of the year.

21st A very early start! Up at 4.00am and left the boat by 4.30 to get Jean to East Midlands Airport by 6.30. Roger discovered that the motorway services didn't open till 8.00am so had to make the return journey still without breakfast!

20th Tried a swim in Chirk pool but it was small and crowded!

Chirk Castle

19th We visited Chirk castle, and excellent National Trust property dating back to the 14th C.

18th Jean left Chirk by train to pick up the car from Leamington. Roger swept chimney and re-sealed the broken collar on the wood burner's chimney.

Chirk Aqueduct(left) +Tunnel(right)

17th We arrived at Chirk and moored within 1/2 mile of the village centre. In the afternoon we walked across the Chirk aqueduct (scary enough but only half the height of the Pontcy....., big one and a quarter of its length!), and then through Chirk tunnel without a torch! Also quite scary! 

Dismantled railway bridge.  The train must
have gone over with one hell of a bump.... 

Blogging at Ellesmere!

16th. After a brief shopping expedition we moved on from Ellesmere to New Marton, just a few miles short of Chirk. The canal has been very shallow in places and we have been stuck on the mud several times

15th Torrential rain all night and into the morning. eventually we moved round into the Ellesmere arm in an effort to get an internet signal. Still poor so we ended up sitting at a picnic table with the umbrella and the laptop. Still we count ourselves lucky with the weather as they have had snow in Devon!

14th We finished making, and hung the front door fly screen in readiness for those long hot days of summer. Made use of library computers again and then had a meal at the Black Lion

Blake Mere

13^thStill very wintry but a bit changeable today. Explored the Prees branch which terminates in a Marina and a nature reserve along an un-navigable section of canal. Passed several beautiful meres and moored for the night at Ellesmere.

12^thMoved on from nice sheltered mooring and stopped at the Marina to purchase paint, gas bottle etc. and then moved to Whixall ‘raised bog’. Not overly exciting except to naturalists!  Cold and wet day!

Staircase near Whitchurch

Chemistry at ~Whitchurch

10^th Moved on with astonishing speed and ease now that prop and rudder are fixed. Met up with a chap on a raft doing a ‘charity trip’ collecting for MacMillan nurses. The staircase locks were a doddle as a C&RT man operated them for us. Moored on the Whitchurch arm, walked to Marina to settle our repair bill.


9^th A rainy morning so not too upset at being stuck. The repair man announced his arrival at 9.0 o’clock with some loud clanging and banging noises as he tried to ‘free’ the rudder. He diagnosed that the rudder had come out of it’s lower mounting socket, and hopefully he’s now put it right!? He took no payment but asked us to settle up at the Marina as we pass through. We, amazingly, had a good internet signal on the phone here, in the middle of nowhere! So we spent the rest of a very wet and windy day uploading blog photos.

This chap hasn't quite got the idea of boating.

8^th A grey and damp start but, undaunted, we set off to Marbury lock. We tied up and walked half a mile into the village. Here was another beautiful old church overlooking a ‘mere’, some interesting looking gargoyles, and a tower leaning 25” from the vertical!! Carried on through a further couple of locks with the tiller becoming steadily more difficult to operate and the boat going slower and slower. We stopped for lunch above Willeymore lock and Roger investigated beneath the weed hatch (1^st time since leaving Warwick)We unwound the remains of a purple scarf, red dress, some tights and several plastic bags!! Unfortunately this did not free the tiller which seized completely as soon as we set off again. We called Whitchurch Marina for help.

Abracadabra .....

....Hey Presto!!

7^th Still improbably good weather considering it’s a bank holiday. Roger decided to clear the blocked sink waste, a ‘ten minute’ job which took up 2 smelly, disgusting hours and was a plumbing nightmare! We walked into the village and discovered the 15thC church which had a special pew for the ‘dog whipper’. His job apparently was to chase away the farmer’s dogs and keep dozing parishioners awake! We had an evening meal at the Cotton Arms

6^th Bank holiday. We moved on through 2 Swanley locks and 3 Baddiley locks. We managed to get the boat jammed quite solidly against the side weir at Swanley top lock and had to be rescued by another boat! We eventually moored at Wrenburyafter negotiating a tricky lift bridge on a busy country road. It has been a beautiful sunny day.

Jean in Blogging mode!

5^th A rest day although we were up early thanks to Benny. Typed some of this blog onto a ‘word’ document ready to transfer. We then removed our Perspex secondary glazing sheets from the windows, in preparation for the summer!

4^th Visited Nantwich museum which featured an exhibition of cheese-making!  Then with the tension mounting we made our way toward the Llangollen canal. We were apprehensive because we had been advised that the boat may be too wide for the first lock! Thoughts of being stuck in it for a day or so whilst holding up a hundred or so other holiday makers were worrying to say the least! Then, YES we are through and we know we can experience this fantastic canal and the amazing aqueduct whose name we cannot pronounce (Pontcysyllte).  We moored between bridges 3 and 4

3^rd Jean went for a swim in Nantwich, while Roger did various chores in Leamington before catching the train back to the boat.

2^nd Roger drove the Rio back to Leamington and included a visit to Jenny’s and later stayed overnight at Peter’s. Jean did ‘Historical’ walk around Nantwich.

1^st After catching up with various chores we walked into Nantwich which is a lovely old town, based originally on the production of salt from local brine springs.