Shropshire

Off to Bettisfield today to pick up our Narrowboat, about a two hour drive from where we spent the night near Bristol. We stopped in Whitchurch to visit a little market in the Main Street, bought some cheese, pepperoni and sour dough and a couple of pork pies! What more could you ask for! There was a narrow boat show on not far from town and we called in to have a look at them. Some pretty cute ones!

They were waiting for us with the boat already when we got to Bettisfield. And after a few instructions and demos we were off! Beautiful day for us to set off, the sun is shining and it's quite hot! Took us a while to get the hang of steering this thing, because it so long it doesn't take much to put it off course! But after cruising down to Ellemere we were doing pretty well. Lots of bridges on the canals too and they are only just wide enough for the Narrowboat so that's pretty interesting trying to line them up!

We stayed the night in Ellesmere, walked down the canal and had a lovely chat to a young guy who was entertaining his daughter catching a few fish in the canal! Think she was more interested in collecting rocks and showing them to me really but she did like to hold the little fish he caught and chuck them back in. She was only about three and giving me heartaches dancing around the edge of the canal! Dad didn't seem the least bit phased though!

The next morning and it's a different story, the skies look very threatening and we had a few hours to do today so we made an early start before it actually started to rain. Luckily we'd packed raincoats and beanie and scarves, what a contrast to yesterday, it is freezing today and a constant drizzle. We stopped about ten for a cuppa and to wait for the worst of the rain to pass.

Once we set off again it just drizzled the whole way to Chirk, we had a bit of fun getting through the locks. I was the one working the locks and was supposed to be listening yesterday when Nick explained it to me, umm don't think it really sunk in. Oh well luckily when we came to the first one there was a few people in front of us and I got to see how it all worked. Seemed like there was plenty of people to help so I wasn't too worried but they all disappeared when it was my turn and left me all alone. Luckily I'm a fast learner or it was pretty simple and I managed to get it sorted.

There are two locks very close to each other and at the next one I had to help these two ladies who had no clue what they were doing! Ha ha reminds me of work, watch one, do one, teach one! Then some old dude asked me if I was the lock keeper, Yep, fake it till you make it! we made it to Chirk and after tying up we walked uptown to look for a beanie for Graham (he left his at home somehow), but we forgot it's Sunday so nothing was open except a gorgeous tea shop where we had tea and the the most delicious chocolate cake, almost better than I would cook myself.Read more