17th - still in Llangollen

It's all a bit bonkers on the canal at times, but mainly just due to the limited space available - the canal is half way up the valley side, after all. It's actually quite an achievement, the whole canal, the only locks being miles away, the canal staying at a flat level across hills & valleys. It's easy enough to get away from the tourist hell of the high st and canal, and I did.



The steam railway are having a week or so of Thomas the Tank engine - all the same bunting and branding I saw at Shacklestone on the Ashby. As the guy there had said, they have to hire in 'Percy' as well, even though it's a bit knakckered and doesn't work - so is on the other end of the tiny train attached to Thomas, being hauled around in a fauirly undignified way. At £12 for adults and £7 for children, there were more people watching from the bridge than on the platform...

The church was lovely & peaceful though, a long chat with the church warden type people, and the opportunity to light a candle for absent friends. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to light a separate candle for each individual, but in the end it's for my benefit anyway, a bit late for them.

Also for my benefit was the walk up to the Horseshoe Falls, basically a semicircular weir so they can extract water to feed down the canal - it makes the canal the worlds biggest millstream, basically. Replace the viaduct with a water wheel and they'd really be in business. The cvanal guidebook claims that no only did Telford build the canal, the viaducts and the falls, but also the A5 from London to Holyhead,which I cross paths with once again. I could have sworn it was the Romans, although they would have called it the AV, of course. I suspect there's a bit of both in it somewhere.

Off to the pub with Bill & Gwen from Andante tonight. Probably quieter than the blues band I saw in the Sun Inn last night, in the company of a couple from Lewisham on a coach trip. It was strange and yet perfectly normalt to be discussing the Amersham Arms in wales...