I Can See You!

Looking through ‘Salmon Waves’ by Paul Sorey towards the locks. Seattle spends a significant part of the city budget on public art.

Watch Your Lines

A boat goes through the Hiram M Chittendon Locks which connect Puget Sound with Washington Lake: one of the few locks separating salt water from fresh. The locks are also some of the largest in the world.

Canal Sign

Warning signs on a canal are completely different to the more day to day traffic signs we’re used to.

Friday Bench: Kennet and Avon Canal

A good solid memorial bench which leaves the viewer asking questions: who were John and David? Brothers? Friends?

One of them wasn’t that much older than me, which is a sobering thought too.

At Dundas Aqueduct

Boat on a Bridge

Our narrowboat pootling across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the Llangollen Canal

Friday Bench: Llangollen Canal

This is the canal junction on the Llangollen Canal at Trevor. Going under the bridge takes you to Llangollen; to the left takes to you to rather exciting Pontcysyllte aqueduct, which is the route we took on our boat

Suitably Attired

I spotted this little chap at Maesbury canal festival recently. I love how dogs at these and steam fairs often sport a jaunty neckerchief.

Friday Bench: Montgomery Canal

The Woman Who Lost Her Husband

It’s funny the brief encounters you make on holiday and how people will readily share a  snapshot of their lives with you. This is a bridge on the Llangollen canal at Whixall and I was struck by how lost and out of place this woman was looking. This is quite a remote place to find someone wandering around with a handbag rather than togged up in full walking/boating/farming gear.

It turned out she’d been tending to her horse nearby which had an abcess on its foot. Her husband had dropped her off and then driven off elsewhere to take their dog for a walk. However, he was nowhere to be seen and long overdue to pick her up.

Luckily 10 minutes after our conversation, a horn bipped behind me and it was the reunited couple coming along the track in their car. It turned out her husband was someone I’d waved to earlier on the opposite side of the canal. I thought he was the boat owner, but he’d just stopped to have a chat with the person who was.

The next day I heard my husband chatting to someone in the garden of the canalside cottage we were renting. It was the same guy. The locals are very friendly in North Shropshire!