Friday 21^st September. Sorry I didn’t update the blog yesterday but when we got to Barbridge the connection was so slow that I decided to wait until today to see if it was any better – which it is! But that’s because we have moved on to Nantwich, all of 3 miles further on our journey. We passed the start of the Llangollen Canal and one day we hope to explore further that way, but not this year. Today we have achieved a first for us. We have spent time walking around Nantwich. In the past we have always pootled past but today we stopped here for lunch and a bit of shopping. And am I glad we did! Here you can see a view of the aqueduct that carries the canal over one of the main roads into the town.

Nantwich has many old buildings and much of the town was rebuilt in the time of Elizabeth 1 after The Great Fire of Nantwich. This is what gives Nantwich its atmosphere of ‘an Elizabethan town’.

Down one of the back allies we came across this chimney which is all that remains of a forge used for making wheels for a carriage maker in an adjacent building.

In front of it stands the Millennium clock.

We had been looking out for a butcher and came across A. T. Welch, Pork Butcher.

And so, we wandered in.

For those of you who watch Dr. Who then you will understand what I mean when I say that this shop was a bit like the Tardis. It was so much larger on the inside that on the out. We went from a standard butchers shop through a speciality food section into a delicatessen, sideways into a coffee shop where they had preserved an original shop, complete with Robertson’s Gollies, Grape Nuts, boxes of broken biscuits, a tin of National Dried Babies Milk, blocks of Fairy soap, etc.

We had lunch there and were so glad that we didn’t just pick up fish and chips (which was my original suggestion). After that, back to the boat where I fitted a new horn that I picked up in Barbridge at the marina, cleaned a bit of brass and oiled the hinges on the back doors. One of those little jobs that is so satisfying once it is done – no more squeaking. Now we’re sitting on the boat listening to the rain, about to light the fire while the casserole cooks in the oven.

P.S. Looking back over the weeks I have wondered why I seem to be so obsessed with the weather. Perhaps it’s because I am standing out in it for about 7 hours a day whereas before I was sitting at a desk just looking out the window. Amazing how a change of lifestyle makes such a difference to your priorities!