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| Canoeists at Maesbury, on the Montgomery |
Thursday 7th June (Cont)
Hello again from Ellesmere. I do hope you enjoyed the photos I included in the last blog. I keep meaning to sort through all our previous pics and making a separate file just for the blogs, simply because the lousy weather lately does not predispose me to wandering around with my Olympus hanging round my neck. I might just get the opportunity to sort those out later today, if Wifey gets the laptop out.
Meanwhile, with even more rain about, it doesn’t look like we’ll get any paintwork done today, and we have three nice, shiny and new pots of the stuff to open up. Ah well, I can dig out my lump of ply and start designing the back door panels.
Now, as my brother will confirm, I’m not one for fishing. In fact, when it comes to that particular sport, I am an abject failure. So it came as something of a shock when, on Radio 2 this morning I discovered why that may be. I wash too much. According to perceived wisdom – or is it just a fisherman’s tale – you should not go fishing if you have just washed. Apparently the fish do not like the smell of soap!!
What’s more, people who shower every day are more likely to suffer sickness. So, on the one hand, if I don’t was I will probably be able to catch loads of fish but, if I shower every day I’ll be ill. Hmmm! There’s got to be a moral somewhere amongst that lot, but I can’t see it just yet.
Friday 8th June
We decided against taking the busted 12 volt t.v. in for repair. After checking into how much it cost, and knowing there would be a minimum charge of £40 plus parts, and suspecting that a new Power Supply wouldn’t come cheap, we figured the game wouldn’t be worth the candle. Besides which, we still have a telly, which we don’t really bother with very much whilst cruising. So, we’ll wait until we return to Mercia before making a decision about a new 12 volt model.
It doesn’t look like we’ll be moving on today, the weather is really bad, just like yesterday. Luckily we still have another day of mooring time, so we’ll just have to sit tight.
Meanwhile, yesterday I actually got around to cutting up the ply for my back door panels. Now, all I have to do is design the layout, for which I shall us my Print Master programme and some good clipart. I’ll keep you posted on progress.
Saturday 9th June
Well now, our 72 hours is up this morning, so we should be moving on but, looking at the state of the weather, that’s looking pretty doubtful. It’s absolutely bucketing down, even as I pound the keys. Luckily BW Mooring Wardens are pretty thin on the ground these days, probably due to their new charity status. If the state of the moorings along this and the Monty are anything to go by, the future does not look too encouraging. Even at the locks and designated mooring areas, much of it is overgrown.
Who likes proper coffee, by which I mean percolated or cafetierre type coffee? Well, we do and, ever since the days of visits to Aunty Bob, we’ve always used Coffee Mate as a whitener. Coffee always seems to taste better with that, rather than ordinary milk.
Yesterday we took a quick walk into Tesco for said whitener and, bless my soul, there was none to be found, except the small containers of the Light variety, and we hate anything that suggests reduced sugar or a replacement sweetener.
Initially we were unable to find where it was being kept. This was unsurprisingly really, since it was on a bottom shelf and in just the one row, most of which was Tesco’s own brand. Eventually we found it, with the help of an employee and I asked why the normal stuff was not available. He then checked on his lovely computer and, much to our amazement, that particular product was no longer available because there’s obviously insufficient demand.
Outside this brand new store are banners and posters proclaiming their efforts at helping the community! Yeah! Right! Profits were down last year, I do believe.
The brightest point was our evening meal of the kate and syd pie that we bought from the local deli/bakery the day before. Scrumtious is the only adjective for that particular jumminess. Alright, yumminess is also an adjective. But you see my point. Real tasty fare at some of these local shops. Fortunately we’ll be coming back this way……….!!
Sunday 10th June
I don’t get it! Yesterday afternoon we hitched up the laptop and had no bars up on the dongle. So, as is my wont, I attached it to the top box on the roof and, hey presto, we had lift off, with three bars showing. This morning, with the dongle still in position on the roof and three bars up, no service. So, what is the point in showing the signal strength if there’s no service out there? Still, we already know just how erratic mobiles and dongles can be up here in wild and woolly Wales.
Yesterday evening, just for a change because we don’t usually bother with such things, not even on a Sunday, we had a roast dinner. With a really succulent piece of lamb to ingest we Wifey went looking for the mint sauce, two of which she found in the cupboard. The first of them had a sell by date of 2008 and had been sitting there for so long, that the residue of mint and vinegar had rusted holes in the lid. I wonder what that stuff does to our innards!
When we arrived here at the top of Welsh Frankton Locks, well, just past them and bridge # 1 West, the wind was becoming quite strong but, as we had already travelled three miles, we decided to pull in. Unbeknown to me until we looked in the Nicholson Guide, we’re only a mile away from the pub we’ll use today, so we won’t be leaving here early today.
Monday 11th June
The pub we’ll use today! Hmmm, another robber. £3.60 for a pint of Guinness. I had my usual two pints and left, never to return. Even then I had to ask the barman to top up the vicar’s collar of froth.
There’s a huge sign by the canal as you approach the pub saying, ‘Welcome, moorings available opposite the pub’. Why are they so keen to welcome boaters, only to stitch them up with high beer prices? This, the Narrow Boat at Maestermyn, is a very attractive pub and, from what I remember of the menu when we passed through here last year, the food prices were pretty reasonable. The attraction here is in the varied menu, so why antagonise your customers by hiking the beer prices? Ah well, with the amount of pubs lining the canals, not all of which are keen to rob and pillage, we boaters have a choice. It’s never more than a few miles to the next one.
Apart from the disappointment with pub prices yesterday, we did manage to get a little work done on the boat. Well, I did, unfortunately we’re a little too low in the water here to be able to paint the sides. Still, I did paint the yellow diamonds on the cratch and expect to paint the green and red ones sometime during the next couple of days. Having said that, with the erratic weather we’ve been subjected to of late, I’m not banking on it.
At the moment it is dry but overcast and we’re only travelling about 3 miles, to a place called St. Martin’s Moor. This is a long, wide stretch of canal with plenty of mooring spaces and, as I also recall from last year, can produce some stunning sunsets.
Tuesday 12th June
It’s looking good, the sun is shining here at St Martin’s Moor on the Llangollen. We arrived here yesterday morning and immediately set to with some painting. Well, not quite immediately, we had our cup of coffee first, of course.
I think I mentioned our trip into Oswestry on 1st of the month, where we bought a twin pack of smoke alarms. I may also have mentioned that the first one ‘beeped’ at us in the early hours just two days later, which ‘beep’ we took as a warning that the batteries were low. Two days!
Anyway, we replaced that unit with the spare and, at 04.45 this morning, that too warned us that the batteries were low. So, being in a rather ratty mood at being awoken at such an ungodly hour, I fired up the laptop and shot off a message to the manufacturers. Oh, by the way, when the first one ‘beeped’ at us we immediately bought some spare batteries, at a staggering cost of £4.50 for a pack of two. Needless to say, these smoke alarms require three batteries each.
I shall, of course, fit the new batteries asap, but only after Wifey has crawled out of the pit.
Other news. We’ve now painted the red diamonds on the face of the cratch and also painted, along the starboard side, all the green below the gunwale. If the weather is kind to us today we’ll have a go at the green above the gunwale, after which it will be the turn of the cream coloured parts. We still have a lot to do, but we are determined to have it all done before we return to the marina.
Panic! Panic! I’ve just come back from walking the dog and was met with a blank screen on the laptop. This is not unusual because, as with most computers, it has built-in power saving system and automatically goes off if left unattended for a certain amount of time.
Under normal circumstances all I have to do is run my finger over the scroll pad, or whatever the pesky thing is called, and up will come the screen. This time, nothing, not a glimmer, absolutely zilch! OMG! Now what do I do? I have visions of turning around and returning to Ellesmere and the local computer shop.
Obviously my next step was to consult with Wifey – still in the marital pit – which is when I noticed that I had not switched on the Inverter. No power to laptop=no laptop. Simple! A big sigh of relief but, had it not been for that darn smoke alarm waking me up, and had I not immediately jumped out of bed and removed the wretched thing, I would have followed my normal routine and switched on the blooming Inverter before anything else.
Could this be a doom-laden warning? Should I, some time later today, back up the laptop? I only did so a couple of weeks ago but, hmmm, maybe I should.
Now, on a totally different subject, I wonder how many of you read the Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler. We do and, what’s more, we keep a list of those we haven’t read, in a nice little book, in Wifey’s handbag, just in case we find a charity shop with a good selection of books. We never buy brand new if we can help it, and we avoid hard backs, waiting for the paperback to appear.
Anyway, according to the novel Inca Gold, some time back in the ‘90s, the USA went over to the decimal system of measurements. Yes, I know they already have dollars, but this was, supposedly, all about the metric system of weights and measures that we Brits have adopted just to please the Europeans. So, what does Mr Cussler do in this novel? Well, alongside every metric measurement he has included a bracketed equivalent ‘old’ measurement. Does he really think we are all so dumb? Or does he perhaps think his American readers are dumb?
This will not put a damper on us reading these novels, but I have to wonder what his publishers were thinking to allow this unnecessary lapse in consideration for his reading public. You expect to find this kind of thing in recipe books, sometimes even extending to British, American and Metric units. But surely, not in a novel> This is a first for me and, I hope, will not be repeated.
Whilst writing that last section of drivel, I was astonished to see a cow, from the field across the other side of the canal, jump in the water and take a swim. Well, perhaps it fell in whilst taking a drink but, off it swam, upstream, not a care in the world, and disappeared into the distance. Whether, or not, it managed to climb out again, is anybody’s guess.
I was a wee bit slow there and should have grabbed the camera to record the happy event. There will probably never be a repeat performance.
O.K. Since Wifey is still in bed, it is only 06.55, I shall attempt to post this blog. I’ll also slip in a couple of photos, but they won’t all be from this year. Unfortunately it is not possible to include photos whilst I’m writing, as they have to be added after posting.
Ooops! Sorry! That will have to wait until later. I forgot. When the computer ‘crashed’, I also lost the Internet connection and I simply can’t be bothered setting it up again.
Wednesday 13th June and I am finally online again and can post this blog.
Cheers for now.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
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| These are the last two plaques from the shop in Audlem |
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