Friday 17th Nov 2006
We had invited Jen's sister and brother-in-law, Jeannine and Tony to join us for a long weekend on Tanglewood and then Jen and I would have the rest of the week on our own. We left Dibden Purlieu early on Friday morning, having arranged to meet them in Chirk for lunch and then collect the boat at 1pm.
The weather was pretty atrocious for the first part of the journey and we stopped for coffee near Oxford and then again at the services on the M54 near Shrewsbury. Here, by chance, we met Jeannine and Tony so we carried on in convoy to Chirk.
We were slightly early at Trevor, so we walked across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct to test Jeannine's head for heights.
After loading our belongings onto Tanglewood, we were away by 1:45pm and heading back across the aqueduct towards Chirk. There are moorings at the north end of Chirk Tunnel, but they are in a gloomy cutting, so passed through the tunnel to Chirk Pool. This is situated between the south end of the tunnel and Chirk Aqueduct and there is only room for a couple of boats to moor.
We walked into the village for some shopping and to decide where to eat that evening. The pub didn't look as if it would be serving food, and Tony didn't fancy the idea of the Tandoori Restaurant, so that just left The Hand Hotel.
We returned there later in the evening and had a rather indifferent meal. The food was advertised as "home-made" on the menu, but the soup tasted like it started life in a packet and I cannot find the right words to describe my steak. Maybe I was just grumpy because I was on day two of a four day cold and headache.