Wrenbury

Wrenbury is a small village that really is as 'chocolate box' as it sounds. Large country houses with gravelled yards, mature trees in their well maintained gardens, all surrounded by tasteful fencing or a nicely trimmed hedge. There is an old stone church, village store with fresh fruit and veg, a bowling club with clubhouse and immaculately mown lawn, a small caravan site and marina.

It was a short but tricky journey to get to Wrenbury, owing to the 15mph wind gusting at 30mph. It took Vicky 4 goes to get away from our mooring! We'd heard the previous day that one of the village's two lift bridges was broken due to the barrier being hit by a car. The first bridge we saw had half a dozen boats moored on the approach. Apparently this wasn't the one we'd been notified of, but had broken very recently. Luckily for us, not only had it had been fixed, but the first boat had just gone through, so we cheekily followed in its wake without having to lift a finger, if you'll pardon the pun.

As soon as we moored Will added extra rivets to the chimney cap. The single rivet he'd done previously had saved it from being blown off, but it had woken us rattling away in the early hours.

There was little to no phone or internet signal but there were pretty rural views outside Rainboat's windows. We took a stroll into the village and had a cuppa and cake at No.18 The Park Café. It didn't look very exciting from the outside but it was homely and chique inside with warm white lights rustic wooden tables and soft coloured stoneware crockery. The only table not reserved was the large one in the centre so we settled ourselves down with Tiger and Leo and Will encouraged another couple with a black lab cross to join us. We soon got chatting; Paul was a retired GP and Yvonne an illustrator. They lived with their rescue dog Poppy at nearby Audlem. Leo quickly stole Yvonne's heart, as he tends to do and they ended up inviting us to visit them when we passed through Audlem in a few months' time!

The wind had thankfully dropped by nightfall but so had the temperature. We woke to a chilly -3.4°C and a world white with frost. Beautiful!Baca lagi