It’s fascinating what you learn when you look around the place you’re living in. Especially when you move around frequently as we do! Our new mooring location near Whitchurch is providing heaps of new learning opportunities.

I discovered that the town’s been occupied since Roman times, boasting the accolade of the oldest inhabited settlement in Shropshire. The straight Roman Road ‘Watling Street’ is Whitchurch High Street. Cyclists pass through on their route from John o ‘Groats to Lands End – or vice versa.

Of course, the Shropshire Union Canal passes nearby. From our mooring, we walked for half an hour to meet my daughter and grandsons on Sunday. Coincidentally from that we found out the canal used to go all the way to a Basin near the centre – now the car park for Victoria Jubilee Park. How fascinating! Walking back to the current canal, we saw evidence of its previous route.

Whitchurch Waterway Country Park

On previous visits to Whitchurch in 2009, we walked through the country park to get to the shops. I recall it being quite a challenge to carry groceries back as it’s a fair distance. Thankfully there’s a new Aldi near our current mooring. It’s much closer than the Morrison’s in Nantwich was from the canal.

Whitchurch is well-known for having heaps of local walks, and the people around certainly seem to take advantage of it.

Yesterday we met up with Lisa and the boys once again. This time to saunter along the Whitchurch Arm and check out the frogs. Barry and I had been entranced by them on the walk back to the boat on Sunday. I captured a short video of them then.

Our grandsons had fabulous fun watching them hopping around, before getting some exercise in the Whitchurch Waterway Country Park.

A New Invention and A Home Brew Top-up

Barry’s latest invention is an on-boat-washing-line! It’s amazing, we can now hang washing outside to dry with it still being on the boat. I can’t see how anyone can complain about that? It’s not on the towpath – though of course we’ll have to be mindful of where we put it out so as not to garrote any passers-by!

Barry was overjoyed to receive our stock-up from Tracey and Tim, the new owners of The Home Brew Boat. Lisa brings us our post which is another reason to be nearby! It’s great to have home-brewed red wine once again. I’m not sure if they have these on the website yet – you may need to get in touch via the website if you want one.

Yes -Barry’s had a haircut! A towpath one by me of course. He wasn’t best pleased with the cut when he went to a barbers salon once 😉

Sunset in Whitchurch

Unfortunately our mooring doesn’t gift us with much of a sunset view now. I did love watching it most nights near Hurleston Junction.

A couple of nights ago there was a stunning one that we could just make out through the hedgerow.

I saw a shot from a friend in New Zealand posted on Facebook, of their sunrise and realised it was almost the same time! Barry checked and found that at certain times of the year, we do indeed both see a sunset and sunrise at the same time. Isn’t that incredible!

An Unfortunate New Zealand ‘Failure’

After 24 days of having no COVID-19 cases in New Zealand, this week they reported two. Sadly it was due to their strict protocols not being followed. The consequences were two women from the UK were allowed to leave their managed self-isolation early. They subsequently travelled from Auckland to Wellington, where they tested positive for COVID-19.

Goodness, we’ve still got eight weeks and four days until our flight and quarantine. At this rate, we’ll be guarded by the army whilst there! Not that it matters. So long as we get there successfully, we’ll deal with whatever we need to do to keep New Zealanders safe.

COVID-19 Symptom Study

We’re both still reporting to the study via their App daily.