I Think That Dates Might Be In Order

Friday 30th August
As the blogs are getting a bit behind when being posted much later than the actual day, I have decided that maybe dating each day might be beneficial to family and friends reading all this twaddle that I write.  So as you can see that is what I have done

Andrew and Jim had seen a bus stop just up the road from the canal arm, which we all headed for just after 10am   The walk in to town would have taken a good 20-30 minutes.  The bus was just 10 minutes and we got to see a bit of Whitchurch residential areas.  In all looking quite good really.
The market, for which we were all there for specifically, was a bit of a disappointment.  But not to worry, we still had a wonder around town.  I had read the previous day that Whitchurch was originally a Roman settlement / town but I was surprised that the only mention of this was at the small clock near the 'center' of town (and no I forgot to take a picture mainly being that the clock was surrounded by information boards!)
We had a peek in the church who's bell tower can be seen from the canal arm and it had some very nice stained glass on the south facing windows and two small sections of the original stained glass in the north face windows.  The reason been that the church had been rebuilt back in the 1700's.
From there a short jaunt down to see some interesting buildings that I had seen - not a very good panorama I'm afraid , but at least you get an idea

Old School Buildings

 
The street was not curved but straight !!
It was originally a school (in the late 1700's) but has now been converted to flats.

That was the one nice thing that I had noticed around town that each of the significant buildings or areas had little history plaques giving the tourist a bit of information about the buildings/area.  This did make it much more interesting being able to read the information in the actual place you were rather than having to remember to look it up once we got back to the boat.
We did have a good look in some of the shops and made a few small purchases and then it was back to the boat and moving on.

We made our way to Grindley Brook Locks, intending to moor up at the visitor moorings ready to descend early on Saturday morning.  We were very surprised to see absolutely no boats waiting at either the top or the bottom of the flight.  Quick decision made, we made our way down the staircase and remaining 3 locks. 

Lock Keepers Hut - with all donated flags from around the world. Including a Maori flag! see top right

Grindley Brook Cafe

 
Carolyn might remember this cafe and small shop at the staircase locks ?  This was where she spent 30 minutes on our way up and 45 on our way back down in 2006, logged in to facebook (or I think it was MySpace then) to be able to chat to her friends that she was missing back in NZ    Today though we just zipped down, after I got Andrew into trouble , I asked him to empty the middle lock while I went to take the photo's and it was supposed to stay part full, at least up to a mark on the gates !  Otherwise the boat going into the middle lock would get caught on the cill because the water level would have been too low !  Never mind the lockie, who was having his lunch break at the time, noticed the problem and immediately rectified it

Once past Grindley Brook we moored up near 'Land of Canaan', must find out why it has that name ??  A lovely spot with a pretty view over the meadows.
And the fishing competition continued :)  Not sure who is in the lead anymore butI don't think that matters to the guys either to be quiet honest :D

Saturday 31st August
Upped pins at a reasonable hour, about 10:30 am to make our way to our destination for the day, Wrenbury.  It was rather chilly and we were happy enough to moor up before the lift bridge and just chill inside out of the wind.
We all made a quick visit to the chandlery to pick up various bits required for the boat, checked out the menus at both the Dusty Miller and Cotton Arms and all came to the conclusion that the pockets were not quite deep enough.  Instead we had dinner aboard and then trotted off to the Cotton Arms to wash it down.  I also sampled the chocolate fudge cake and it was every bit as good as it looked As this was our last night in the company of Sheila and Jim, it was a late one but most enjoyable.  Thanks to you both for your company over the past 12 days or so, it has been a lot of fun.  We will part company tomorrow at Hurleston Junction as we are planning to go North to Chester and Ellesmere Port, to satisfy Andrew's desire to travel as much of the canal network as he can.  Sheila and Jim will be going South to make their way slowly to their winter moorings with a small detour on the way. 

Tomorrow will bring new grounds for us, whoo hoo.

So cheerio again everyone and keep on chugging :)