Bartimaeus

Cats love to bask in the sun and the weather has been so hot that there has been the rare sighting of a reptile. The hot weather had the sheep retreating to the shade however.

We were booked into the locks in the morning and headed off followed close behind by the people we had leap frogged the day before in Popkiss. The woman worked the first lock with Shane to help us through, once they had checked with the lock keepers that it was okay to start. There were more lock keepers on duty and two were working at the staircase at the top. We met one boat coming the other way. 

It was very hot and I managed in one lock to snatch time to put some sun cream on. When we moored up opposite the field of calves in the afternoon, we could see they were finding it a thirsty day as they slithered down to the canal edge to drink.

In the morning they were waterside again, but not drinking. They were as curious about me as I was about them. 

We had a walk into Ellesmere and took a roundabout route to the cafe where we had light leafy lunch and were preparing to leave when a woman on her own at the next table asked us to watch her table while she went to the toilet. Someone did indeed approach it. She returned then we had a nice chat.  She asked if we could watch her spotagain while she went in to order. She was meant to be meeting a friend but the friend has been held up in her journey. Once she was sorted out we jokingly asked if it was okay to leave now. 

The cafe is at the side of a pond. I thought I was seeing a large black water bird, but it was a statue in the water, of a china goose and I don't recall ever seeing one of those.  I looked them up and they normally have a prominent bump above the beak. The artist has made a modest rise rather than the great protuberances I saw in other pictures. Some mallards were making friends with it.

We were working up a suitable space to have the cakes later. We got an extra time delay by being asked to take a photo of two other ladies enjoying a sunny bench. They were very happy to chat with us despite already having each other's company. They both seemed to make the most of where they were and loved Shropshire, having both travelled and lived abroad for large chunks of their lives.

As we headed to the cafe we met the lady we'd spoken to at the cafe, and could see she had recognised us. She was with a friend. I called over "hurray you made it!" which both amused and confused the friend but I could hear she was about to have all explained. 

Neither of the cakes we had last time (miso and apple cake and pistachio croissant) were available and there was a wide different selection available so I had a chocolate torte and Shane had a large cinnamon bun. I normally like them but it looked too big for me. We were sitting outside and a group were seated at the table we had at lunchtime (nice easy number to remember as it was my year of birth) so we took the one next to it. We saw the woman passing with her friend who had sat at this table on her own earlier and she waved then pantomimed  being indignant that we were on 'her' table, as they went by.

I enjoyed the cake and coffee though I sometimes jumped or winced at the persistent yapping of a young dog, which sometimes set off some other dogs. We weren't the only ones finding it uncomfortable. One of their dogs slipped its lead and ran loose into the inside restaurant too. 

We stayed another evening at Ellesmere. This morning the calves had been moved to another field. A spot of shopping, where the shop keeper recognised us from a previous visit, and it was time for us to move to pastures new too.

Shane was pleased to count a family of ten ducklings still had the same number. We are seeing ducklings very regularly now. We met a pair of Muscovy ducks, but no ducklings with them. One was splashing a great deal.

We passed a heron and in stead of flying before we reached it, it waited then took off just after we passed and flew in the same direction we were going, with it's great wings flapping. 

We had remembered that there was a large lookout tower, We moored nearby and went to see it. There were warning signs to beware of adders. Perhaps it was good it was a cool day and they were less likely to be out and about though it did claim they might bask in the sun even on a cold day, once they were out of hibernation. There were more things to invoke dread. If you are agorophobic proceed with caution or, not at all. The raft spider lives here and though harmless to humans it is the largest one in Britain.

We found the tower, called the Mammoth tower, as there used to be mammoths in these peat bogs at one time. The peat has been well used in the past by people but they are now trying to preserve it. The ground level was much higher 150 years ago  than it is today, as shown on the side of the tower.

There is a seven mile walk but we chose the shorter circuit. The wind was cold but later the wind dropped and it got sunny. Is that an adder I see before me?

There were information posts regularly and I could hear the curlew. Their numbers had dropped by 50%. The notices said that dogs should be kept on a leash because it caused the birds to abandon their nests, fearing a large predator and this also exposed them to smaller predators that took chicks and eggs. Nonetheless the person we saw walking their dog there did not have it on a leash. I didn't seem to be causing havoc and was not far from her but why choose to go walking to a nature reserve then not respect the nature they are trying to preserve?

There was more information about the raft spider, not only is it the largest, it hunts by water and waits at the edge it feels on the surface to tell if prey is on there, like other spiders feel web movement. It can dive below water to escape predators itself and it can run on the  surface itself to catch prey. 

I didn't fancy meeting one of those but they are not as huge as BBC newsround claimed. They are 20 mm with 70 mm legspan. That is not, as they said, 'rat sized'.

Though it was cooler, in the evening Shane called me to alert me to a sign of summer. We could hear a cuckoo!