Back on Free Spirit

The meal in The Sun Trevor last night, was delicious. Our table was booked for 17.30, early for us to eat, but we wanted to watch Strictly Come Dancing at 18.40pm. The rain was lashing down so we made a quick dash over the bridge to the Pub.  The rain never let up so we had another quick dash back to the boat.  All night the rain continued and by early morning the wind had also picked up so we knew we were in for an interesting time when we had to reverse the boat back into Anglo Welsh basin. After a quick tidy round we set off for Trevor just after 9am. Although we still had strong winds to contend with the rain had stopped and the sun came out making our final journey a delight.  When we arrived it was every bit as difficult to reverse the boat back as I had predicted but Tony (engineer and maintenance man) managed to grab our centre rope and with a lot of pulling and pushing got Merlin safely moored up. Then all we had to do was to remove our belongings, clean the boat inside and set off for Free Spirit.

River Dee higher then normal

Trough in the sky. Photo taken on our return to Trevor from the Llangollen

  Our journey home was slow going as we hadn’t realised the amount of flooding that had occurred throughout North Wales and the Midlands . We made a detour to Christine’s in Swadlincote, Derby and had to cross the River Trent at Ripton near Willington. I can’t remember the last time we saw the river that high. Then after leaving Christine we made a slight detour to Swarkstone to see what the floods were like there.  Horrendous is the only way I can describe it. I took loads of photos at, not only Swarkstone, but at Sawley and Trent lock on the Erewash as well. These I will post in tomorrow’s blog.

Swarkstone Bridge. More photos to follow tomorrow

On arriving back at Free Spirit we noticed the water levels were a lot higher than normal. So much so that we couldn’t get back on the boat without Ian having to don his wellies and move the boat forward. Jade looked on in what appeared to be some amusement. I’m sure she thought that we should have jumped for the back deck. After all its easy for a dog with four legs!!!  Still the fire is now lit, unpacking done and Ian is just off to get a meal from our local Chinese. Our 5 day break was fantastic and we are seriously thinking of doing it all over again in early March next year.  All depends on the MRI results early December.