Christmas lunch with CRT Volunteers

As soon as we got to Birmingham, I was off on the train to Chirk for a couple of days with Mum, and to have a Christmas lunch with some of the volunteers at the Trevor / Pontcysyllte Visitor Centre.  Thank you Carol for inviting me, and for organising it.  It was great to catch up with everyone, and the food was exceptional.

Lunch in the Corn Mill Llangollen:  L-R:  Me, Mike, Trish, Phil, Carol, Margaret and John

I took Cole (Rachel's dog) for a walk along the canal.  Chirk tunnel was blocked off, as work progressed to repoint the brickwork in the tunnel.

Further along the canal in Chirk Bank, was this sunken boat.  This boat arrived up our way at Froncysyllte late July/early August, moored for weeks on the 48 hour moorings.  It was around this time that a couple of boats had their outboard motor stolen.  On the second theft, the police were called to this boat, and one of the motors was retrieved.  The bloke who owned (or not owned) this boat then disappeared.  Now I must point out here that I'm not accusing anyone of anything, just stating the facts.  I don't know what happened to the bloke, whether he did a runner, or is being held 'at her majesties pleasure'.  When we left to go on our travels in September, the boat had drifted to near Chirk tunnel, after being cast adrift many many times over the weeks.  Whenever it came adrift, someone would stop and tie it up, only for it to become free a few days later.  By December, it had drifted through the tunnel (before it was blocked off!), across Chirk Aqueduct, and retied at Chirk Bank, where it now lies submerged.  I did notice that it finally has a 'Patrol Notice' pinned to it - for all the good that will do.  So thanks pal, now CRT will incur charges to have it removed from the water.  Perhaps CRT should contact the local constabulary to ascertain his whereabouts, and try to recoup the cost.

Happy New Year

All the very best for 2015!
Thank you for reading this blog throughout 2014, and I hope to keep up to date a bit better in 2015.

After having a lovely couple of weeks in Spain, it was back to the boat and some cruising.  We wanted to get into Birmingham for a Jools Holland concert in the Symphony Hall, and had a different to our 'usual' route, as there was a stoppage on the Worcester & Birmingham canal.  So from Brinklow, we went through Rugby, on to Braunston (where incidentaly, we caught up with Maffi) then a right turn at Napton (with a cheeky visit to the Folly) onto the Grand Union, through Leamington Spa and Warwick, with a chance to visit Rachel in Kenilworth for a couple of days, and a shopping trip with Mum to Leamington.  Then up the Hatton flight of locks, through Knowle and Solihull, down the Camp Hill locks, (which have a bit of a bad reputation, but more of that later), then across the Digbeth branch and up the Ashtead locks, and then up the Farmers Bridge flight of locks into Birmingham centre.  I thought I'd include a couple of maps to explain our route a bit better, so (Mum) you can see where we've been.  Sorry about the poor quality, but it's the best I could do - for some reason the better quality images kept coming up upside down, and try as I might, I could not get them to come up the right way round!

 

Along the Hatton flight, out of Warwick towards Birmingham, this is "Ugly Bridge"!

Oh heck - that's alot of locks - 21 of them, large double width.

The lovely sculpture outside the CRT offices at Hatton

We passed NB No Problem weighted down with wood. 

No one aboard, as they were on a cruise at the time on a substantially bigger boat!

Ah, this is where the wood must have come from!  

More logs than you can shake a stick at.

A reminder of the Aki pub in Fron, that same yellow colour, visible for miles!

We had made good progress along the Grand Union section into Birmingham, and all was going well, until we came to the last pound, between locks 5 and 6, and were met with this........

No water!  There was no way a boat could travel through that little puddle.  However, when I walked onto the next lock, I could see that someone had left a ground paddle up, which had completely drained the pound.  I closed the paddle, so all we had to do was send down some water from the top of the flight - ensuring we didnt flood any of the other pounds on the way down.

Eventually, after about an hour, the pound had sufficient water in it for us to continue on our way.

After descending the 6 Camp Hill locks, there's a sharp right hand turn at Typhoo Basin, and you ascend 6 locks along the Digbeth Branch.  Not the most salubrious of areas I can say!  These 6 locks were a doddle, as whoever descended the locks prior to our arrival, had left every bottom gate open, so we could go straight into the lock.  Fine, for us going up the locks, not so great if you were coming down the locks, as it involves alot more work to set each one in your favour.

I do love the Farmers Bridge flight of locks, taking you under the high rise buildings into the heart of the city, and most of them are close together, so it doesn't take that long to do the 13 locks.

With five locks to go, my knees were feeling the strain of already having done 20 locks, together with Knowle and Hatton flights over the previous days, so when this chap appeared, whipped out a windlass from his back pack, and started lifting paddles and opening gates - I could have kissed him!  He says he does a bit of volunteering for CRT, but likes nothing more than going for a walk along the canal & doing a bit of lock keeping.  

And so into Birmingham - but that's the next blog!

Spain - Part Three (including the foodie pics!)

Yet more pics from Spain - I hope you're keeping up Mum!

Wine tasting, as you do.....

Me with my new purchase - a fantastic leather bag.  Bought at half the price the bloke at the market was selling it for originally, thanks entirely to Andy's negotiating skills, and fluent Spanish!

Flamingos!!!  Who'd have thought!  This is on our way to Calpe, for a final fling before we left the following day. 

Dave heading off at a pace to Trudy's bar in Javea for a 'penultimate'

Cheers!

 

 

I can't help myself, we had such wonderful food here, I just had to take pictures of it, it was so fabulous!!  We certainly ate our share of fish.

 

If I ever find this wine over here, you won't be seeing me for a while!

In every supermarket, there were stands and stands of these hams. 

Shame they weigh so much, or I would have tried to smuggle one home.

Albondigas!!! 

I did try to make them when we came back here (pork meat balls in a chorizo & tomato sauce), but they didn't taste a patch on Andy's.

I'm going to have to eat it - it's got my name on it.

On to the fish restaurants in Calpe, which were amazing.  They displayed their 'dishes' raw, in a chiller cabinet, you then browsed the raw dishes, picked the one you wanted, they then took it away and cooked it.

Dave and I were tempted by this massive tray of prawns, langustines and other beasties,

but it was too much for even us to take on.

so we opted for lobster paella instead.  I'm salivating just thinking about it now!

I think Dave's face says it all.

Boy, was it good! 

Look at the size of that fish!

 

And finally, this pic is taken in Calpe, where coincidentally, our next door boat neighbours, Rick & Hazel spent their holiday climbing the bit of rock in the background!

Below is a pic of Rick in action, climbing said rock.

 

 

And that, my friends was our holiday in pictures.  A memorable 50th birthday I'm sure you'll agree.  Back to the real world now, well, not really the 'real' world, but the boaty world of Sue & Dave, so back to boating blogging.