Ellesmere

Saturday 4th July

The Llangollen might have a lot of things going for it but good signals for my mobile Internet are not amongst them!

We left Wrenbury on Wednesday, another of our early starts. However it is the best time of the day to travel in the heat and also not many other boaters are up....

Departing WrenburyOne of the many lifting bridgesApproaching one of the many narrow bridges

We moored in the open below bridge 35 as Geoff had deduced that we could get a good satellite signal for the TV here...he was right so I had another afternoon of tennis. We were moored up by 1215.

Thursday was another early start with Ellesmere the goal (and a good TV picture). Objective was achieved before 11am. This time not in the open but on the designated moorings just before the entrance to the town arm. More boats around now, lots of hire boats. Geoff set off for his usual explore. Small market town which is adequate for shopping. Sadly no signal at all for Internet. When I eventually walked up to town on the Friday I recognised it. We had been this way before when we first started on narrowboats. We had a week with David & Linda on Hotel Boat Heather. We were accompanied by friends Ann& Keith and had a brilliant week.
The above picture is early morning on the mere which was taken by Geoff on one of his early morning walks with Barnaby. The walk eventually led to the town for Geoff to buy the paper whilst a patient dog waits outside...

Below is the end of the town arm. Just opposite here they are building a new Tesco's which looks as though it will be quite large. Due to open on August 1st. This is the second convenient supermarket we have just missed. They opened a big new Sainsburys alongside the canal just after we left Gloucester.

We set off a a slightly more reasonable hour this morning. Watered etc and proceeded on the short trip to the bottom of the Frankton Locks which are the entrance to the Montgomery Canal. We have booked to go through this morning but they don't open until noon. However I have a connection so am able to get up to date........... we can only go 7 miles as the rest has not yet been restored but we shall have the weekend here. Some of my family from North Wales are planning to visit us on Sunday.