A young German family, here in Clydach to visit their relative in Craig Cefn Parc, were our  canal guests on a very showery morning in Coed Gwilym Park. As they were fairly new to canoeing, and there were three young children, we lashed two boats together to form a raft for them. They obviously underestimated their ability as they produced a perfomance of well nigh perfect synchronised paddling on their journey to Lower Trebanos Lock and back.  They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and will recommend the canoe trip to all their friends in Cologne. We look forward to a flood of Kolners (that’s a resident of Cologne) on the canal canoes very quickly (that’s very poor alliteration).

Our canoe raft has many uses. As we had no vehicle with a tow bar to take all our equipment down to the Canoe store today, we use the raft as a substitute for either of our two maintenance boats, ‘Nellie’ and ‘The Tank’. Dominic, Michelle, and the two Aleds took the raft along the canoe route to clear the many overhanging branches as well as the invasive Canadian Pond Weed which is rampant at this time of year.

While the weather meant that canoeing was only for the brave, David used the resulting spare time to do some much needed gardening  in our small plot behind the canoe store. We were delighted when a lady walking her dog stopped and offered us all the surplus bulbs from her own garden. We are very grateful for such kindness.

We will be back at the canoe store next Tuesday as we are every Tuesday during the summer holidays. We open between 10.00am and 1.00pm.  Do join us.