Llangollen for the weekend

Hi, welcome back

We've had a lovely weekend here in Llangollen.  The basin is practically empty which is a shame as the moorings are really good and at the moment they're free, with added bonus of free electricity too.

Llangollen is a really lovely little town with plenty of nice shops, pubs and eateries. It's very busy with tourists over the weekend and there's usually a crowd on the bridge photographing the river below.

The sunny weather spurred me on to start the Spring cleaning yesterday.  We removed the cratch cover and spread it over the picnic table so that I could give it a good cleaning.

It's mostly coal dust and spider poo on the inside. Thankfully it's pretty easy to get off and the results are quite dramatic as you can see. It certainly make the cratch a lot lighter inside once it's been done.

The outside never gets very dirty and I put that down to this product which I spray on a couple of times a year. It puts a nice shiny coating on the cratch and makes dust and bird droppings easy to wipe off.  I buy it from car parts shops like Motorland or Halfords and a bottle has lasted me 4 years so it works out extremely economical too.

I quite like the front of the boat without the cratch cover but it's just not practical for us to leave it off as the front of the boat is our "shed".

While I did the cratch cover Roger cleaned the well deck, so that's the first job crossed off the spring cleaning list.

After lunch yesterday we took Chico for a walk in the sunshine.  There are spring flowers everywhere and this is the largest patch of snowdrops I've seen so far............beautiful

This is the chain bridge over the river Dee.  It's been renovated since we were here last year

You can now walk across the river and would be able to pick up a train from the station opposite to get back to Llangollen. Unfortunately for us the trains weren't running this weekend. We never seem to be here at the right time to be able to ride on a steam train.

Bye for now

Back to the Shroppie

First I have to say "if something's not broken, why fix it?" Blogger has been 'updated' so if things look different for a while please bare with me while I re-learn how to do it.

We carried on down the Llangollen today, stopping by Bridge 1 just before Hurleston Locks to go to Snugbury's Ice Cream Farm. There was a gap in my freezer just the right size for a litre container of Cherry Blizzard (white choc ice-cream with cherries and choccy biscuit bits) so we took some of that for the boat and had a couple of cones while we went to check out the rest of the farm. They have about 30 different flavours to choose from, I had Raspberry Pavlova and Roger had Sloe Gin .....heaven!

I'd wanted to see their straw sculpture of the Polar bear but it had gone. You can see a pic here of what it looked like.

Instead we watched the piglets playing and rooting around looking for food.

Aren't they cute? They're about the size of a small dog. I didn't get a photo of mum but she was huge.

This was my favourite.  I could quite easily have taken it home.

On the way back to the boat we called in at Blackberry Farm which backs onto the canal.

Their free-range eggs are gorgeous.

hens doing what hens do best

sunbathing hens

After filling up with water we carried on down the locks and are now moored just below the junction, ready to carry on tomorrow. We're heading for the cattle market at Beeston which is on every Wednesday.

Saturday Lunch

After my Mum left yesterday afternoon Roger went back to the Anglo Welsh hire base to see if they'd had a delivery of diesel yet.  The guy he spoke to didn't know what Roger was talking about.  It turns out they'd had diesel all along, but the girl who had been on reception was on her own and didn't want to/couldn't sell us any.  We reversed the boat back and took 100 litres.  At the moment it's 85p domestic rate and they do any split.  We're aiming to fill up at Wheaton Aston when we pass in a couple of weeks as it's still the cheapest in the region.

We're moored right beside the caravan park at the Cotton Arms.  It's a good place to moor, not only because of the pub but also because you can use the caravan site's rubbish disposal and Elsan facilities (if you have a cassette toilet) and the moorings here are always busy.

This lunchtime we've been to the pub.  It's quite well known amongst boaters for its Lunch Club on Wednesday and Saturday and we've been before.  They do 2 courses for a fiver with a choice of 3 starters and 4 mains which change every week.  They also serve this menu on Wednesday evenings and their other main menu also looks good.  If you're in the area it's definitely worth a visit, but be sure to book if you want a meal in the evening, especially at weekend, as they're regularly full with boaters and caravanners alike. These are the menus for the next 4 weeks. Double click on the photo to enlarge it.

April showers

Yesterday's weather was typical April showers and we got wet a couple of times.  We carried on down Grindley Brook locks to moor on the visitor moorings and paid a visit to the Horse and Jockey pub which had been recommended on a couple of other blogs.  The beer was good and the menu interesting but we ate on the boat as we've planned on eating at the Cotton Arms in Wrenbury on Saturday.

Today we've had heavy rain, hail and thunder.... oh and brilliant sunshine as well.
At Quoisley Lock there was a stall selling hen's and guinea fowl eggs. I've never seen guinea fowl eggs for sale before. They're smaller than hens eggs but larger than quails eggs.

Beside Marbury Lock there were hens eggs and an assortment of jams and marmalades for sale.

When we got to the Anglo Welsh hire base at Wrenbury Mill we called in to pick up some diesel. Our gauge is showing absolutely empty (although we know we still have enough for a couple more days) but  unfortunately for us they didn't have any.  They're waiting for a delivery, so until that arrives we're going no further.

My Mum's coming to visit tomorrow. She's disabled but we've managed to moor right beside the path to the caravan park which will mean she's got easy access to the boat.

Prees Branch

It’s been a beautiful day again today. Bright and sunny,  perfect cruising weather. Roger had to watch the Chinese Grand Prix first so we set off after lunch, stopping for water and rubbish disposal at Bettisfield on the way.  The canal is nice and quiet again after the Easter holidays and we’ve only seen a handful of moving boats all day.

We turned down the Prees Branch at the junction and moored between the 2 lift bridges.  There were a few boats moored near the junction but we’re alone again down here.

When I did the dusting this afternoon I noticed a small burn mark on one of the shelves that hadn’t been there yesterday.

Once the sun shone we found out what had caused it.  The sun rays were being magnified through a paperweight.

This paperweight has been in the same spot for over 3 years so it must have been a fluke that it’s happened, but we’re not taking any chances and it’s now been moved to a different place in the boat, away from direct sunlight.

Around the Meres

This really is a beautiful place to moor!  Because it's only a mile outside Ellesmere town hardly any boats bother stopping to moor and, apart from a couple of hire boats who've stopped for a couple of hours late afternoon to use the picnic tables to have their tea alfresco, we've had it all to ourselves.

We've had quite a few (very welcome)  heavy rain showers but in between these the sun's shone and we've been out and about exploring.  1.5 miles further along the canal is Colemere.

It's a lot bigger than Blakemere and we walked all round it on Friday.  It has it's own sailing club which brought back memories of my early teenage years, spent dinghy racing at Leigh Flash beside the Bridgewater Canal.

Yesterday we walked back into Ellesmere and round the mere.

I loved this wood carving/sculpture we found on the woodland walk.  As it was raining at the time the woods were deserted and it was just a lovely place to be.

There were quite a few dog walkers about and, for the most part, Chico coped really well.  He's learning very quickly that if he doesn't feel happy in the vicinity of another dog, he can turn round and we go another way. If there's no other way to go we pick him up and turn him away from the oncoming dog.  This worked really well with 5 dogs and we had a stress-free walk. That is until a woman appeared round a corner with an uncontrolled dog off the lead.  It came bounding over and even though she could see we'd picked Chico up and he was clearly very distressed, she was totally unable to call her dog back and get it under control.  Although she muttered an embarrassed apology, that one incident just about undid all the progress we'd made with the other dogs earlier. We'll have another long walk again today and see if we can get his confidence back.  We could really do with meeting another (patient) boater with a very placid dog who we could practice with. Maybe I'll put a sign in the window next time we're moored in a busy spot.

Blakemere

Aren't blogs wonderful? There are a few boaters in the area who have blogs and everyone has a different slant. It's nice when people publish useful information and I read on Bendigedig's blog that Elsie had taken her dog to Blakemere Veterinary Centre in Ellesmere. As Chico was due for his annual vaccinations we gave them a try.  It's a very friendly, efficient practice and the vet was wonderful with Chico. He knew he was frightened of other dogs so went to great pains to keep us away from others while we were waiting,  making the visit as stress-free as possible for Chico.  If you need a vet while you're in the area I can recommend them.

We’ve spent a couple of days at Ellesmere, moored opposite the service block and watching the antics of the novice hire boaters.  There’s been collisions, speeding boats, boats going the wrong way at the junction and panicking and reversing out and boats steered by young children who had no idea what they were doing and no control.  In short it’s been entertaining mayhem, but our 72 hours were up so, after filling with water, dumping the rubbish and shopping in Tesco we’ve moved about a mile to moor in one of our favourite spots.

This is Blakemere. It’s a small lake about 20 feet away from the canal.  It’s quiet and really beautiful and we’ll probably stay here for a couple of days.

This is the view from the dinette window. It's so nice to sit here while we have our meals and watch the wild life.

Ellesmere

Happy Easter!

This morning, after saying goodbye to Jill and Allen on "Rough Grazing", we carried on down to Ellesmere.  There'd been lots of boats going past this morning, all heading up towards Llangollen and when we set off they were queuing 7 deep for the lock.  I'm certainly glad we're heading the other way!

It's not much quieter in Ellesmere. There are plenty of boats out on the main line where we've moored and the arm was almost full when we walked into town.

We've been to the Red Lion for lunch. Their Sunday roast is still as good as it was 18 months ago and the pub was absolutely packed.

Having heard on the towpath telegraph about the beer festival at the White Hart, we called in for a drink after lunch and stayed to listen to the folk/jammin session.

Bank Holiday Mayhem

We moved today, down New Marton Locks to moor up with Jill and Allen on "Rough Grazing".

The canal is extremely busy with hire boats, almost all going up the locks towards Llangollen. They've been coming in convoys of 4 - 5 at a time and almost all were speeding. One hire boat was going so fast he was pushing a huge breaking bow wave and was right up behind the boat in front. They couldn't overtake, although I'm certain he would have tried, as this was just before the locks and there were already 4 boats in front of him queueing .

It's the M25!

It's amazing how many boats have suddenly appeared on this canal!  We must have seen 40 moving boats today, mostly hire boats but some private ones too.

On Saturday we moved back to Froncysyllte. It's a lovely quiet mooring, and there's one particular spot where we can get Satellite through the trees.  Yesterday we crossed over the Pontycyllte Aqueduct again, (yes, I hid inside again) to go to the Anglo Welsh hire base at Trevor as we needed diesel.  It was 89p/litre domestic rate and they do any split. As we were going through the lift bridge before the aqueduct about 10 canoes were being launched into the water. They were paddled by total novices who then followed the trip boat across the aqueduct. This is against the flow of the water and it took them a good 20 minutes to cross as some of them were so weak they could hardly make any headway and others kept stopping to admire the view. Needless to say they caused a bit of a hold-up as boats had to wait for them to get out of the way.  They were quicker going back as the water flow pushed them along.

About 50 yards from where we were moored was an overhanging tree and we kept hearing hire boats scratching their paintwork on it when they got too close. So this morning, as we were leaving, we stopped just past it and got the saw and secateurs out and chopped it right back.  The branches were dead and fairly brittle so it wasn't too hard a job,  but they were covered with large thorns so you can imagine the horrible scratches they must have caused.

half chopped back

You may remember me commenting on the fruit trees that have been planted by the Shropshire Union Canal Society at the moorings by Whitehouse Tunnel. When we passed today I noticed that one of them has been dug up, presumably stolen.

Chico had a very successful training session on Saturday but unfortunately it was his last one with Karen as we have to start heading down and off the Llangollen Canal.  I'd like to come back later in the year so he can have a few more lessons, we'll have to see how things work out. In the meantime Karen recommended this book to help us continue with his training so I've bought a copy on Kindle.

We're now moored back at Chirk Bank, hopefully for the last time, and for the first time for 3 weeks we've had a spot of rain. It didn't last long but was enough for me to need a raincoat.

A great week

The Llangollen is getting quite busy in the run up to Easter. There are loads of hire boats going up and down, mostly well driven, however we were rammed by a day boat earlier today.

Last weekend was spent socialising with a group of lovely boaters who had come out of Chirk Marina for an extended weekend jaunt and we made a valiant effort to drink the Poachers Pocket dry. This was followed by a leisurely couple of days cruising back down New Marton locks to fill up with water and a half mile walk down Frankton locks to the refuse skip to dump the rubbish.

We arrived back at the Poachers Pocket this morning, closely followed by Charles and Dolores on "Felonious Mongoose" who we last met when they moored in Macclesfield Marina for a short while a couple of years ago.  They invited us on board for a coffee and we had a good chat, catching up and sharing experiences.

Chico's still having his training sessions with Karen of Beastly Thoughts and it finally looks like we're making progress. Walks are much less stressful although I think it'll be a long time (if ever) till he 's cured and can happily socialise with other dogs. While we were out walking this morning, we met a man with 4 dogs who took great pains to tell me that he was a dog trainer and I was doing it all wrong!  According to him I shouldn't use praise and treats but should yank him hard by the collar every time he barks at another dog and use other aversion/punishment methods. I think I'll stick with Karen's methods thank you!

The weather this week has been absolutely glorious and I've started planting up the troughs on the roof. So far I've filled 2 with violas and have tomatoes, courgettes and strawberries hardening off ready for planting on in a couple of weeks. The local mallards are very tame as they're regularly fed by people eating in the pub garden.  This one sat on the roof for ages watching me doing the planting. I just hope it doesn't fancy tender young plants along with its pub diet of crisps and chips.

One of our expensive SMD (LED) lamps has failed after only 12 months (should last around 30,000 hours) and when Roger took it down to check he found out it was the capacitor that's failed. You may recall that we had problems with failing capacitors in the TV back in January so he ordered the right size replacement and again has effected a repair.  The only draw-back is that the minimum order of these particular capacitors is 100 at a time but at under £3 including delivery and VAT it's not such a hardship.

If anyone needs any SMD's repairing we've got plenty of capacitors going spare, just get in touch.

As it's been such a leisurely week I've been doing quite a lot of crochet, working on my blanket and also making this Happy Flower wall hanging. It's another of Lucy's creations and the instructions are available here.

Poachers Pocket

The other day, when we were moored at Froncysyllte, we watched 2 guys on the opposite bank catching rabbits.  They'd covered a couple of rabbit holes in the hedgerow with netting and then sent a polecat down to flush out the rabbits.  It seems that rabbit meat is quite popular round here as we've seen plenty for sale, both in the local butchers and in the NISA supermarket in Llangollen. It's a very healthy meat being extremely low fat. It's also very tender and is one of our favourites, so when the butchers in Chirk had some nice meaty ones the other day I couldn't resist. It also seems quite appropriate as we're now moored at the Poachers Pocket pub.

This is a recipe I used to make years ago, I hope you like it, we certainly did!

Rabbit with mustard and prunes  - serves 4
1 rabbit cut into 6 joints
1 tblsp plain flour
1 finely chopped onion
12 ready to eat prunes
1 tablespoon creme fraiche
1 dessert spoon Dijon mustard
salt & pepper

Put the flour into a plastic bag, add the joints one at a time and shake to coat in the flour.

Gently brown in olive oil, don't overcrowd the pan or they will just stew rather than brown.

Add the onions and prunes and pour over just enough water to cover.
Season with salt and pepper and simmer on a low heat for 45 mins. till tender.
Remove the rabbit with a slotted spoon and keep warm.
Add the mustard and creme fraiche to the sauce and then simmer until reduced a bit. You can also mash the prunes into the sauce if you like.

Serve with mashed potatoes and green veg.