Under way

The 2013 peregrination has commenced! My best beloved's brother & wife are coming across the Irish Sea with their caravan in early May, and we've planned to meet up on the Llangollen canal so they can have a sleepover on Erin Mae. And catch up with us, of course. So we have a fairly tight schedule if we're to get to Chirk on time (there's a song in there somewhere). We were going to set out on Saturday, but issues with the door of our Squirrel stove imposed a delay. It's still not sorted – but that's for a different post.

Being boaters of the less hardy variety, we'd been looking askance at the weather forecasts. However, it's already late, so we started out under a lowering sky – it had changed from cloudless to sunless in the time it took us to get showered and breakfasted. We'd decided to get as far as we reasonably could on this first day, and everything went our way, with most of the locks set and waiting for us to go straight in. Even the wind, which blew us about a bit at times, was little more than a nuisance. 14 miles and 12 locks later, we're ensconced at Gailey Wharf.

So here we go. The summer stretches out before us (or will do, once it arrives). We've got various plans to meet up with family and friends, but exactly what we'll do after our visit to Llangollen, who knows? That's the adventure. Meanwhile, there's a stir fry to cook and an accordion to practise.