Park Head Canal Festival 2014

What a wonderful weekend for a boating festival .....

Loads and loads of photos....

Great name for .... a butty

Dave was in heaven - he found that the X96 bus went from the "showground" to outside the Royal Exchange in Stourbridge.  Landlord John was pleased to see him - and ordered an extra barrel of Bathams, ready for the Stourbridge rally in a couple of weeks.

Back to Park Head - the beer on offer in the beer tent was brewed at Ma Pardoes and included a barrel specially brewed for the festival.

The photos aren't in order, and these are of the Friday afternoon with all the boats arriving.

Boat dancing going on here, all shuffling around trying to get everyone into their allotted mooring.

Dave on lock keeping duty on Friday

Altogether a fabulous weekend.

Jeanette's 50th Birthday Bash

Happy Birthday to my best friend Jeanette Salisbury-Roberts.  We've been friends since school - almost 40 years.  She took the bull by the horns and had a 50th birthday bash - the first of "our year" to hit the big five-O.  It's my 50th in November.  Unlike Jeanette who has grasped the nettle, I will be running away to Spain!

Fantastic birthday cake - depicting Jeanette & Allen's four dogs

 

School friends together: Me, Jeanette and Mandi

Pete (Mandi's better 'alf), Me & Jeanette

More school pals:  Mandi, Tina & Jenny

(both of whom I hadn't seen for 30 years, but look exactly the same)

 

Fantastic night, thank you Jeanette & Allen, and thanks to "old" friends for making it such a memorable night. (No I'm still not going to have a party of my own though)

 

Is it that time of year already?

Well - we're off!  Beefur has left the building mooring.  We're on the move, and will be for the next six months or so.  We've paid the mooring for the next 12 months, so we will be returning there at some point next year. 

Thanks to the Volunteers in the Trevor Visitor Centre for the nice send off - with cakes, lovely.

It has been a very busy year in the Visitor Centre.  Numbers were up again on last year. Throughout August we had over 7,700 people through the door, that's an average of 248 per day.  If I just had a pound for every time I pronounced "Pontcysyllte" I'd be a very rich woman. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the comments about the blog, and thank you to all the many strangers who have shouted out to us on the way, along the lines "why aren't you blogging".  I didn't realise so many people actually read my rambling drivel.  Hello to the man on NB Centurion, who called out at a lock (once he saw the boat) "hey, you're the b*****r".  "I beg your pardon" I replied, quite surprised - had I met this man before and had upset him in some way?  "The blogger - you're the blogger!"  Ah, blogger, yes, blogger!  Hello to the nice lady who used to have the NB Elizabeth who I spoke to at the Visitor Centre a couple of times (sorry, I didn't take your name).  Yes - I'm blogging again!  Also a big hello to the Volunteers at the Visitor Centre (Hi Carol, hope you got the link).

It was a bit of a wrench to leave our moorings, as it's such a beautiful part of the world, but once we were under way, all doubts disappeared, what a wonderful couple of weeks it's been for cruising.  It does take us a bit longer than usual to get off the Llangollen Canal (like a week!), as we like to catch up with friends along the way - especially Andy and Richard at Grindley Brook, who have just returned from an epic trip to London and Manchester on their NB Carpe Diem, and with Buffy of course  (click here for a link to Buffy's wonderful batik work)

view out of the window when moored at Blakemere

Going down......... Grindley Brook.  Thanks to Robin & Del for help locking us down.

Swallows & house martins dive bombing the boat!

 

Ready to go ?

 

There has been so many boats on the move over the last week, when we passed Viking at Whitchurch, and ABC at Wrenbury Mill, there wasn't one hire boat moored between them - they were all out.

 

 

That's it for now - internet signal is not at it's best, so it's taking an age to load pics.

Hopefully, normal blogging service will be resumed as soon as possible!

Buckden & Saturn in Trevor Old Dry Dock

What a way to start a day!  I was just opening up in the Information Centre, when Buckden and Saturn arrived in Trevor Basin.  The plan was to see if they would both get into the 'wet' dock (as opposed to the Anglo Welsh dry dock next door).  CRT plan to repair the walls between the two docks, and hopefully put it to good use.

You don't see many of these on the top end of the Llangollen Canal!

 

With a bit of heaving and shoving, the stop planks were removed, and opened up the dock, for the first time in many, many years.

 

First to enter the dock was Saturn, the only remaining Shroppie Fly Boat, ably manoeuvred by CRT's Les.

Then Buckden.....

That's a big boat!

Gently does it.....

And they're in... both of them.

And out again.....

of course the rain was coming down in buckets

Bit of pulling, bit of poling.......

and they were off again. 

This is the first time anyone can remember that two boats have been in the dock together - let's hope it's not the last, and the much awaited repairs are carried out to accommodate visiting boats such as these.