Bartimaeus

When we first moored up next to a building site, I was wondering if we would be keen to move promptly to get away from the noise. We found that on the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, the builders were getting a break. Not so for the people who hire out boats, run the boat cafe or work in a visitor centre. There it was amazing to see how well the engineering had lasted. Work began in the 1700s, I wonder how long they expected it to last. 

 They certainly knew it was a great achievement if it was the tallest navigable aqueduct in the world. (The Lisbon aqueduct is much higher but carries drinking water and is not navigable.) Did any of these engineers know their faces would be up on plaques over two hundred years later? It was an era of ambition and vision. 

I don't know if there was always a visitor's centre and if it was a tourist attraction then it surely didn't have a painted sheep outside it.

Some of the proposed canal system was not built and some of the ones that were built, have not been maintained. The industries they were built to serve are no longer in business but their heritage is remembered in stone, incorporating iron within it.

The weather meant we did not go back across the aqueduct but stayed another night. Today having seen Trevor basin, we went for a walk. Shane had seen a sign to "heritage village". We thought that might be the town of Trevor, but it seemed we had gone the wrong way and ended up back at the start.

As we passed a car park I noticed a vehicle that had outlasted most and with a little reuse and repair of body work was still functioning after 40years - a reliable Reliant.

We found another car with a contrast colour bonnet, but this time it looked a style statement, a pop of pink, rather than a make do and mend approach, a vampish Volkswagen with false eyelashes and painted lips.

We found the signs again and they took us to Cefn (pronounced Kevin). We stopped for elevenses at Mooncakes. They certainly had an interesting array of cakes and cookies, as well as savoury products. By the time we had finished the establishment that promised art exhibitions had opened. But by the time we had paid and put our jackets on, it had closed and there was a sign saying "back in 2 minutes" It was touch and go whether Shane would last the wait. I was glad we managed to stick around to get in. It looked like it was an automatic door, but it didn't open. A woman came over and pushed it sideways and I opened it a bit further. She apologised, saying that it used to be automatic but wasn't working any more. She intended getting handles so visitors would find it easier to open.

Right in front of us was an artwork waiting for uplift to be exhibited in other places. It was painted red all over and was a reincarnation from the wreck of a man's life. From a series of severe physical and mental health and homelessness, the artist had ended up living in his car and after having a suicide attempt halted, by a park ranger finding him, he began his life afresh and made his car and everything into it, into this artwork. His life turned around, this art is the embodiment of his past.

It was a touching story of a shattered and rebuilt life. We never know what chance event or gesture might turn a life around, or be a tipping point.  Upstairs I found a poetry book for sale, which I bought. On our way back we found a path that gave other aqueduct views. One surprised us with a small glimpse through the trees. 

As we got near we saw a group and a person on the ground. People were in attendance and using a survival blanket to cover him, so we did not encroach, but it was another reminder that things can go awry at any time.

The poetry book was written by an ex doctor, The Ghosts of A and E. She had met many people whose lives were in crisis, or hanging in the balance. These were no flippant ditties of her duties, but  poems  portraying pain, loss, shame, struggle, hopelessness and resilience too.

While I was reading. Shane fell into conversation with people from the neighbouring boats. The robin reliant belonged to one of them. They are good at making things work for themselves and look out for others too. It was him who had shown us where we could moor.

Another has a few creatures that share her life, cockatiels, a dog and a cockerel, though she said it thought it was a dog. It is very content to greet all the passing dogs and does not have to compete with any other cocks and stands on top of his cage by day, she has fitted him with a dog harness. She has been told that with an unstressed life it could live to thirty.

I went out to stretch my legs and clear my head after the poignant poetry and looked around the heritage site. A step over stile connects the path to the road and showed significant wear of feet over hundreds of years but stands strong. 

It will be there for a long time to come and hopefully the aqueduct will too. I imagine these trees around have grown up over the more than two centuries it has been there.