Grindley Brook (complete with birthday celebrations)

Monday was the first day this winter that Karen has put a woolly hat on!

She really spoilt me today as it was my birthday (not that she doesn’t spoil me usually of course).   

After a cooked breakfast (which followed pain au chocolat and coffee in bed) we left the Prees branch and rejoined the Llangollen, turning right to find the Whitchurch arm.

I never understand why so much money is spent on cutting and strimming the towpaths.  As far as I'm concerned they should be left for wildlife – walkers will make a natural path and the money can be used for proper canal maintenence.

Ironically we went under Old Man’s bridge on my birthday.

This railway bridge looked in a really sorry state of repair.

After a few miles we turned right onto the Whitchurch arm.

It’s not a long arm and we turned the boat round, moored up and had lunch which was larger than usual!

It is not possible for a boat of our length to turn right when leaving the arm so we had to retrace our steps to the next winding hole to wind (turn).  Even though winding is pronounced like burping a baby Karen still calls them windy holes pronounced as in a gale.   

As with the other arms and branches on the Llangollen the disused lengths have been converted to nature reserves. After lunch I carried on towards Grindley Brook whilst Karen baked a birthday cake complete with my favourite fruit, raspberries.  I know I’m boring but my favourite cake is still a Victoria sandwich.  As it was a birthday we had cream with our cake of course!

We had six locks to negotiate at Grindley Brook and after the locks we moored up and found our way to a pub for a birthday drink.

When we got back to the boat we had pulled pork which had been in the slow cooker for about nine hours.  It goes without saying that it was delicious.  Here are the six locks we went down at Grindley Brook.