Dusty Miller

The Dusty Miller is a famous pub/restaurant on the Llangollin canal right next to an electric lift bridge on a fairly busy through-route for traffic, where I got severely abused on the outward journey by a very smart middle-aged lady for letting more than one boat through, obviously further delaying her beautician treatment. Whilst her accent was up-market her language was certainly not ( or have I lost track of how posh people speak these days ? ) Her vehicle was at the back of a queue and I was pre-occupied at the time, but I would put money on it being a highly polished Range Rover Evoque.

Weather wise; overcast with a hint of sun and early autumn temperatures.  Health wise; no problems.

We filled with water and joined the queue for Grindley Brook locks, the infamous staircase ones it took us 4 hours to get through previously. The middle lock is still faulty but scheduled for repair in the winter.

Overall there are 6 locks in the set and we got through them all in less than 2 hours in full sunshine.

However, as she was leaving the last lock Lynne announced a distinct lack of steering ( on the boat ) so we managed to pull Tardis Two onto some moorings near the lock, to which the resident of the old lock cottage informed us we  could not stay there without causing minor havoc. When informed of our plight he offered to help pull us through a railway bridge to some public moorings the other side, which we did. A quick call to Canal and River Rescue ( a sort of boat AA ) with location details and they dispatched an engineer to assist us. The rudder had dislodged itself from it's "cup" but was refitted within an hour, by which time we had "lost" an afternoon so we opted to stay for the night .

The stove was allowed to burn itself out as outside temperatures had returned to normal.

We had a very lively night in the local pub with fellow boaters and resolved to always take a torch with us for future night forays into unknown territory.