Voyages of Gabriel: Ellesmere Festival

Sat 11th Aug

We had no cruising to do, and no responsibilities today, so we had a leisurely morning. We wandered along the towpath to see what was going on at the festival.

On the way we met Chris and Sally, and also Tim and Tracey. As we crossed the footbridge over the arm, we spotted Roger and Mirjana returning from the CRT workshops as part of Fizzgigs, a group of wandering performers.

Fizzgigs

After they had passed, we decided to visit the workshops, which are not usually open to the public. It was very interesting, with a forge, a dry dock, and a store of historic patterns. It seems that every lock has its own patterns for the various parts. We even found patterns for parts of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

Works depot

Forge

Patterns

Beeston Iron Lock pattern

Pontcysyllte Aqueduct pattern

Dry Dock

Access to the depot was by a floating pontoon used as a bridge, which was pulled backwards and forwards by a team of volunteers. It was moved to one side if a boat wanted to pass.

Pontoon bridge

We visited the trading boats, and James bought two lots of fudge. We bought some food from another boat – Italian flatbreads – and we sat at one of their tables where our mission had been a week earlier.

We went to Vermeulens where we bought some sausage rolls, and then we visited the Methodist Church to see their flower festival. It had a global theme, and mission. Some of the displays quoted “One more step along the world I go” and “I the Lord of Sea and Sky”.

We called in at the Market Hall on our way back, where there was an interesting art exhibition. We found Joyce there, the steward from the Methodist Church.

Then we paid a visit to Tesco and had a chat with the people on the Cellar Church stall before returning to the boat. Several of the trading boats were saying that tomorrow would be a wash out. We told them we thought it would be better than they expected.

There was rain in the night.

No boating today

Sun 12th Aug

Although there was some light rain as we woke up, it had stopped by the time the open air service began at 10am. This was meant to be a churches together service but the Anglicans still had their own service in their church at the same time, which wasn’t helpful.

Ellesmere Festival service

Roger Garland had arranged a classic car show, and it was interesting to see about thirty cars lined up on the wharf. There were also two penny farthings being ridden around.

Classic cars

Several of the traders had packed up, thinking it was going to be wet, but the day stayed dry until late afternoon. We had a pizza from the pizza boat, and sat down to listen to the Shropshire Boatmen (includes Roger) singing unaccompanied sea shanties and boating songs.

Shropshire Boatmen

We returned to the boat for a snooze before taking a different route past the White Hart to the Town Hall for a meeting of the Cellar Church at 7pm. We picked up a Chinese meal afterwards.