Bartimaeus

Shane told me last night that the lady on the towpath, asking about safety when mooring, was indeed with the canoeists, as she had asked him if they could follow us at the forthcoming major draws of the area. While the Pontcysyllte aqueduct is famously attractive and much photographed, it remains to non Welsh speakers hard to say. People will say "Have you been to Llangollen?" (One hears a few variations on the pronunciation of the two double ls.) Or "Enjoy the aqueduct, it's amazing!" I would assume they mean the Pontcysyllte aqueduct. I had quite forgotten that Chirk had an impressive aqueduct too. What's more it is on the border of Wales and England and is easy to say too so more people should be talking about it! 

We went into Chirk, passing a sign advertising "the last pub in England". We passed the pub and into the town, and despite knowing what place we were heading into my brain still mentally merged the sign outside St Mary's as a blend of "Church and Kirk", rather than the name of the town, showing how quickly the brain processes using context to make sense of words.

Shopping in Chirk I enjoyed visiting a greengrocer where virtually nothing was wrapped in plastic. I thought I heard the server greet his friend in Welsh. He sounded Welsh when he served me. He rounded down my charge to the nearest whole pound, not charging for one measly ten pence carrot. I had a good haul of varied vegetables and some local Welsh yogurt, so when he said "See you later" I hoped we would stop again on the way back.

A boat moored near us had a Welsh name, meaning home, but when you have a travelling home the name doesn't tell you where you are but probably that they are or like Welsh and feel at home on the water.

 The boat we were moored behind had another word I didn't recognise. It was clearly not Welsh. Now I have looked it up, it means rejoice or be happy in Zulu. Africa is obviously their "happy place", and presumably living on a boat.

We had a walk to get a good look at the aqueduct from various angles. The walk was peaceful and the lambs were calm too, one slightly lifted its head from it's woolly  pillow to blink at me. Its twin dozed on.

We looked from the viewpoint just as a boat was emerging and moving round to queue for the tunnel. Both the aqueduct and tunnel are for one way traffic but there is a space for waiting and passing.

Going down to the waiting and turning area, the information board established that both were great British engineering achievements.  The aqueduct crosses the border with one end in Wales and the other in England. The engineers who headed each project were both Scottish and the navvies who were responsible for most canal construction were often Irish. They travelled around to do the work round the country and did it with spades and pick axes. It was all an amazing achievement.

The footpath is wide and easy to walk along. There is a wide edge on the other side without a rail and a small sign saying not to walk. At the end there is a sign welcoming you to England (and an even bigger sign telling you the Samaritans number in case you need to talk to someone). Today we were met by a cheery fundraiser for the Canal and River Trust.

The river below is surprisingly small. The map Shane showed me had the country border in the middle of the aqueduct, but the river is the border and it was very much closer to the English end. The river looked like a small stream and looking down on it through the trees, I could imagine that in the summer, it might be invisible with leaves fully out.

After our walk we took Bartimaeus along. We were lucky that there was no queuing for us at all, no one else was on or coming our way with us.

While Shane drove I took a pictures of the viaduct alongside, which is so big it is hard to get much of it in shot.  The fields of sheep were on both sides oblivious.

After that Shane gave me the tiller and walked along getting pictures of us travelling over and went ahead to see if there was anyone waiting at the tunnel, while I went slowly over against the flow. He hopped back on before we headed into the tunnel. I could see there was a light at the other end so they looked like they intended coming my way but they hadn't started in so I carried on.  As we were slow, they may have been impatient waiting. When we reached the other end, one man walked towards us and looked a bit agitated or concerned. He didn't greet us in any way but communicated with the young driver of the boat that was waiting with its light on.  The driver looked relaxed and Shane told him he would get through much faster than we did, explaining the flow affected us. 

At a narrow point further on Shane got off to look for a mooring place as we had been going through a wooded area. As he walked ahead, I saw a largish bird fly in the trees. I kept a look out and then just behind me a jay landed on a low branch over the water. It was facing the other way. I briefly wondered if I  might get a picture and if I should reverse, but with Shane possibly waiting I hesitated to do so and then it flew away from me.  I was pleased to have seen it but it was a bit of a shame it wasn't coming my way.