THE BELLS

WEDNESDAY 26TH TO FRIDAY 28TH MAY 2010

It is a very special feeling to be able to stay for free, right in the city centre, although we did move SKYY from its discreet mooring under the City Walls to the more visible moorings by the Frog and Nightingale as we thought it would be more secure there whilst we explored Chester.

My first surprise was the OAP special price of £4 per person to have a look around the Cathedral, I guess the big Nikon camera ruled out the possibility that we were just going into pray, in which case there would have been no charge, but without doubt, worth the money.

One of Chester’s many special features is the medieval double deck shopping rows, which as it started to rain was a boom as we could explore the shops with hardly a drop of rain getting to us, thankfully Nauticalia, the shop that sells all things nautical, made this time bearable. Of course the many, black and white timber building make sure that window shopping in Chester is a very special experience.

Thursday was food shopping day and the local Tesco store made that a relatively easy job for Jacquie whilst Duggie and I again explored the City and the canal. What did surprise me was that whilst there were plenty of signs pointing to all parts of the City and the River Dee, not one sign pointed to the canal. In the City centre there is a board listing 29 different attractions, the railway station had a whole column describing its history, but the only reference to the canal, was a dining experience on the Mill Hotel’s boat. It really did seem that either Chester had totally forgotten the importance of the canal to the City, or was ashamed of it. A pity, as just the staircase lock is a gongoozlers delight.

It was time to move on and Friday afternoon we moved up the five locks, filled up with water at by The Old Trooper Pub and stopped for the night between bridges 117 and 116. This was a quite spot, the only noise was the bells from Waverton Church, having a Friday night practice and Duggie and I followed the sound until we were underneath the church tower in the tiny old farming centre of the Village, the main part of the village being half a mile north. Two hungry bodies returned to SKYY for dinner and a start of a very pleasant time at this mooring.