A Festival? Let's go..... actually let's not.

 The next morning, guess what?  Yes, sunny!  It was a Sunday which was nice for all those people who live for the weekend.

 

The countryside was beautiful in the sunshine.

Trust me when I say this was a field of barley ripening nicely.  One of my favourite colour schemes is the golden corn and barley and the dark olive green of the trees in July and August.

I'm not crazy on being in trees, especially not for mooring.  The exception is made when the sun beams through the leaves and everything is pretty. 

Then all of a sudden a remarkable garden worthy of opening to the public.

Then Meres. Several of them both sides of the canal, we were told the consequence of mining in this area. 

A short tunnel, of course our lamp had it's cover on as we'd had much rain.  A quick scramble to remove.

This swan definitely had a guilty look on it's face. 

Lovely house but I can't remember exactly where it was.... I think on the approach to Ellesmere.

As we got nearer to Ellesmere there were many boats in both directions, moored boats all along and it became apparent that there was a Boat Festival.  Lets stop and go see, it might be fun, says I.  

Well Reader, we did get a mooring past the Ellesmere Arm, people everywhere, even more boats coming and going.  It made great Gongoozling as boats tried to get past moored boats through narrow spots with trees overhanging....

In the end it turned out to be Raft Racing on the Mere not narrow boats so my interest immediately waned, even though David and I took part in a Raft Race with Young Farmers some 45 years ago, this was down a tidal river and into a harbour when the wind and tide beat all entrants and our Raft was rescued by the Life Boat.  

Amanda (Our ex Boat Sharer) was onboard too, remember Amanda?  Yes we have been friends for that long.

Anyway having moored up in a fabulous sunny position and having done plenty of boating we stayed put.

Much later we walked into town, it was like a ghost town, just us two and a stray dog.

We had a drink in The Vault.  Chosen because of its craft ales.

This was our lovely mooring but taken the following morning as we left at the crack of....

Supper was warm egg salad with melted cheese on the eggs.