Saturday 7th July
to Saturday 12th May
Sunday 5th July
We had a really good day
yesterday; as opposed to the mundane of course.
The weather was good, a wee
bit chilly first thing, but warmer later. We first walked into Crick and bought
a few bits and pieces and then, when we returned, sat at the dinette with
coffee and Mail.
At lunchtime, as promised, we
paid a visit to The Poacher’s Pocket, which is a Marston’s pub and very much
family orientated. The garden is quite a size too, as is the car park. For the
disabled the pub and restaurant is reached by an electrically operated chair
lift. It even has a bar-b-que section in one corner of the garden, and a
children’s play area. Like I said, family orientated.
For our drink and snacks we
sat inside, but for the second drink we sat in the garden and took a couple of
selfies, one of which I sent off to Emma in New Zealand. She’s been asking for
a photo of us both for some time now and this time we managed to remember the
camera.
From about 2pm onwards it was
tennis all the way through to 8pm, when we turned the T.V. off and switched to
radio. Initially that was Radio 2 but, as soon as that Craig Charles person
came on we switched to Classic FM. We’re nothing if not eclectic in our music
taste, but we can’t abide some of the inane chatter that exudes in great
gobbets from some so-called D.Js.
This morning we’re not sure
where we’ll end up. It’s quite possible we’ll go across Chirk Aqueduct and the
tunnel, followed by Whitehouse tunnel, and then moor up, or we could very well
go all the way to Llangollen. We won’t know until we are on our way.
Monday 7th July
We only moved along three
miles, to the other side of Whitehouse tunnel and then, after our coffee we got
stuck in to some work. We removed the roses and dragons panels from the back
doors and then sanded down and re-varnished the doors. Thankfully the fickle
Welsh weather stayed dry for us.
In the afternoon and evening
we settled down for the men’s final at Wimbledon. And that was that for our day.
How exciting can that be?
Tuesday 8th July
Well, here we are at
Llangollen and the one thing that never surprises us, is the weather. You think
England varies? You should try Wales for fickle weather. After arriving here at
about 10.30 am we had our coffee and then took a walk into town. A short way
down the towpath down came the rain. Wifey walked back to the boat for our
coats and, by the time she got back to me the rain had stopped and it didn’t
start again until well into the afternoon.
The best thing about
Llangollen; apart from the beautiful scenery; is the fact that we can connect
to mains electricity here and have a water point by the side of the boat. What
seemed unbelievable to us was the speed at which our batteries attained full
charge. We had only been connected for a little over an hour when Sheila
checked the Inverter/Charger and found we were already at full charge.
Marvellous! And the cost per night is just £6.00.
As with most recognised
holiday destinations, the prices in Llangollen are highly inflated. I’m a lover
of pork pies, as my wife will confirm, but I hate it when I find individual
ones selling at £1.35 and larger ones at over £3.50 each. Of course, we also
find this to be true in some butchers in England, but they are the ones I try
to avoid. Many really good butchers turn out excellent pork pies and sell at
99p each or just a few pence over £1, with the larger ones at £1.99, and the
ginormous ones at £3 or so. Why must these other places be so greedy?
We’ll be returning to England
tomorrow as it is only 48 hour mooring here. We’ll be passing over the
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, but don’t ask me how to pronounce the name, even the
Welsh speakers have various pronunciations, so we English have no chance.
Wednesday 9th July
Unbeknown to us before we
arrived at Llangollen, it’s Eisteddford week this week. Not that it made any
difference to our movements over the last two days. However, it certainly made
a difference to our intentions yesterday evening, as I will now report.
After wandering around town
in the morning; just for a few bits and pieces and a couple of brackets for my
driving seat; we spent the afternoon sitting around on the boat. I managed to
rub down a couple of the back panels, on which I will now paint castles.
At about 4 pm and on the spur
of the moment, I suggested that we might go out for our evening meal and give
The Bridge Inn a try, and this was when Eisteddford week scotched our plans.
Six o/clock seemed a suitable
time for our meal and so, after watching Pointless, off we went to the pub, and
found crowds of people milling around outside, and the joint completely packed.
Now, we either had to return
to the boat and cook our own dinner – not an option – or find somewhere else to
eat. This turned out to be the ‘Pasta, Pizza and Steakhouse’, which lies at the
top of a side street, adjacent to the A5. What a great surprise that was, an
upstairs seating area for about 30 people and great service. In a place like
this, where everything is cooked to order, it was no problem waiting for our
meal.
We chose chicken pasta, a
glass of wine for Wifey and a rather expensive bottle of Stella for me,
followed by another one later. A most enjoyable evening, I have to say.
We have, as usual enjoyed our
stay here, during which we’ve had the use of our electric kettle, for the first
time since leaving Crick. I’m hoping Wifey will rise from her slumbers a little
earlier than normal, so that we can get away from here ahead of the rush.
Regardless of the time we leave, Wifey will still have to walk ahead and let me
know if it’s clear for me to pass through the two narrow sections. Then we’ll
be heading for this side of the Whitehouse tunnel.
Thursday 10th July
We left Llongollen at 7.30 am
yesterday in hopes of beating the rush. Several boats had already left before
us, but we still managed to turn the boat around ahead of five others. All went
well through the first of the two narrow
stretches but, as I entered the second narrow stretch, I saw a man walking
towards me who insisted I wait at the passing point so that their boat; which
was nowhere in sight; could come through. Naturally I pooh poohed that idea.
What? I should sit there and wait when his boat hadn’t even started out yet.
“On yer bike”, says I and carried on. He was not amused!
When we came under a bridge
much nearer to Trefor Basin, we encountered moored boats and also spotted a
holiday boat coming towards us. Now, from Trefor to Llangollen can be quite
narrow in places and it can also be shallow close to the towpath. So, as we
pulled in to allow the approaching holiday boat to pass, we became grounded in
the shallows. Behind us were two or three of the boats that left after us and,
by the time we freed ourselves from grounding, the approaching boat had passed
us, and the following boats had also passed us.
As a direct result of CRT not
maintaining this canal with some well needed dredging, we now had two slow
moving holiday boats ahead of us. Even whilst going over the big aqueduct;
where there’s a footpath going across; these two boats refused to speed up when
Sheila asked them too.
However, what really stuck in
our throats was what followed afterwards. Every time another boat approached
the lead boat of those two, it pulled into the side, waited for the approaching
boat to pass, and then moved on. As a result of this stupidity a huge tailback
of boats built up.
We eventually managed to pass
both of these boats and, as I pulled alongside the first of them we asked what
they thought they were doing. Their answer will surprise even hardened boaters;
they were pulling in because they wanted to stay close to each other!! At the
same time as this altercation was taking place, a man from their companion boat
walked up and berated his friend for stopping saying, “Now you’ve let this
b…..d pass you”.
That was nice, now wasn’t it?
Of course, as you would expect from seasoned boaters, we replied in kind and
carried on to our moorings at Whitehouse tunnel. But that wasn’t the end of the
matter, far from it. The ‘gentleman’ who had called me a nasty name later
walked by us, just as we were tying up and apologised for his rudeness. It
transpired that, not only did they want to keep together; as if they could
actually get lost if a gap opened up; they actually liked to walk along the
canal, which was why their boats were going so slow.
My answer to that was, ‘so
why rent a boat out?’
Even after that our day did
not end well. There are days along this canal when it can be pretty windy,
especially in exposed, straight stretches like these moorings and it can be difficult to negotiate your way
past moored boats, especially when another boat is approaching. In these
instances the logical actions for the two boats would be for both boats to slow
down and keep away from the moored boats but, do these reckless holiday boaters
think to do so, no? They carry on at their usual high speed, crash into the
side of a moored boat; in this case ours; with the loss of a fender from the
front of our boat. Angry does not even come close to describing my mood at that
point in time.
So, we had something of a
trying day yesterday, but it wasn’t over yet. Having erected out TV aerial and
pointed it in the same direction as last time we were here, the picture kept
breaking up. Even when I put the extra pole up, it still carried on doing so
and we took the darned thing down and stuck noses in books.
This was not the best day we
had experienced on this canal. Next year we’ll come here earlier in the season,
or perhaps much later, and definitely not in Eisteddford week. Is that the
right spelling?
Now for some good news. Yes
there is some silver lining to this cloud. We’ve been following The Dog
Rescuers on Channel Five over the past few weeks and have decided to look for
another Jack Russell; we still miss our Rusty, especially when cruising.
Unfortunately most RSPCA centres have a preponderance of Staffies and very few
Jacks and our search seemed to be going nowhere.
But, when we entered Dog
Rescue into Google, up came Dog’s Trust and, much to our surprise, their branch
at Kenilworth – how appropriate – has an abundance of Jacks, so we immediately
sent of an enquiry. Hopefully; assuming they have nothing against our ages and
our lifestyle; we’ll be able to pay them a visit when we get back to Crick. Kenilworth
is only a few miles from Rugby, so it shouldn’t take long to drive there. I’m
still awaiting a reply to my email.
Friday 11th July
After being bashed about so
much on Wednesday, we were very happy to leave Whitehouse moorings and head for
Poacher’s Pocket and left at about 8 am. We had to wait for about 10 minutes
while a boat came through Whitehouse tunnel, and then we were on our way.
As we approached Chirk
tunnel, a boat was just coming out but, instead of carrying on up the canal, it
pulled in to the tunnel moorings, which are there specifically for those
waiting to go through. There was still room for us to tie up there, as that
boat was only small, so I pulled in and Sheila asked why he had stopped.
Apparently this poor man had just purchased the boat at Ellesmere, and already
it had broken down twice. Fortunately he managed to get it started again and
was soon on his way.
Luckily for us, we not only
ran through the tunnel without problems, we also found the aqueduct free of
boats and poodled across in our own time. Our luck didn’t hold for very long
though, because even more boaters gave us grief. I don’t know what it is about
some people, but you just can’t help them without attracting abuse.
The stretch of canal between
Chirk tunnel and Chirk Bank is very narrow and meandering and, to our minds at
least, should not have any moorings. It’s bad enough passing moored boats on
this stretched, without having to send Sheila ahead to check nothing is coming
towards us. There are two bridges along this stretch and it is impossible to
see another boat approaching the other side of the first, which is why Wifey
walks ahead.
So, on this occasion she
signalled back to me that there were two boats approaching the bridge, but not
until I was already passing through. Once I saw what was going on, I decided to
pull on to the towpath side and allow these other two to go on their way,
rather than hold back and hover whilst they passed a moored boat.
Now, as I pulled into the
towpath, for some odd reason the first of those boats also headed that way. I
assume he thought I was going to pass him, but he should have realised that I
simply didn’t have room enough to pass him and the boat behind. Luckily we
didn’t collide and, with the aid of his bow-thruster, he pulled away from the
towpath and passed.
What came next was a torrent
of abuse from the driver’s spouse. She asked why I didn’t signal, to which I
replied that it was pretty obvious what I was doing. She then asked Sheila why
we had pulled over and said she thought we were mooring up. To which Wifey
replied that we were pulling in in order to allow them to pass and, at any
rate, why did they also try to pull in if they weren’t intending to moor up.
The whole thing was a bit of
a farce really, and it didn’t go unnoticed by a neighbour, who was sitting
outside her cottage enjoying the sunshine. Sheila went across to her to
apologise for the disturbance and was told that all the people hereabouts had
complained about these problems for quite some time, and they had asked BW to
remove the mooring rings and prohibit boaters from mooring there, but their
pleas had been ignored.
I have to side with those
cottagers on this one, it must drive them potty, especially on those days when
it’s bright enough to sit outside.
Well now, I have seven pages
of type here, but I don’t have a strong enough Internet signal to post, so I’ll
try again tomorrow morning, by which time we hope we will have enjoyed a
peaceful day at the top of the Montgomery canal.
Saturday 12th July
A really good morning’s
cruising yesterday, with more than enough friendly to satisfy. Our first stop
on the way to the Montgomery arm was at the water point at top of New Merton
Locks and, with only one boat ahead of us, we thought we would be next. It didn’t
take long to top up the water, but in that short time two more boats passed us,
so we now had to wait for three boats to go down the locks.
In the meantime we chatted to
the people who came up behind us, so the time passed quite pleasantly. We
really timed that part of our trip quite badly and it took us almost three
hours to reach the top of the Montgomery, only six miles from our previous moorings.
The day was very hot, so no
work was carried out on the boat, which was a shame because we still have a lot
to do, including re-fitting my seat. This will probably be done whilst we’re at
Ellesmere; our next stop; where we’ll be for the weekend and perhaps a couple
of days into next week too, because we intend to take the bus to Oswestry or
Shrewsbury on Monday.
At that as they say, is that
for this blog but please remember that we have no mobile signal at Ellesmere.
Take care and have a great weekend.
Dave and Sheila.
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