Day's out and making the most of the sun

 I've mentioned before that I look after my youngest grandson, Jacob, on Wednesdays.  Joanne drops him off around 8.45 on her way to work and after dropping Bonnie at school.  We usually try to get out somewhere, even if it's just to the park, as was the case today.  There's not always time for us to go out for the whole day as once Joanne has picked Bonnie up from school there is about an hour before she has to leave and take Jacob to Squirrels, where she is also one of the helpers. 

Even though we are well into the Summer months the weather hasn't been great, we've had the odd few days here and there and It just so happened that one of those rare hot sunny days was on a Wednesday, three weeks ago to be exact, memorable because since then temperatures haven't reach anywhere near what we had for those few days.  Of course we had to make the most of it and as you can see Jacob thoroughly enjoyed the trip to the local outdoor splash park.  

Last week Mark was off work and was able to come out with us, so we went a little further afield.

I've been to Llangollen many times, as a child and as an adult, it's a lovely little town, I've shared photos of some of my visits before, they are in the Labels section on the right hand side of my blog.  On this day though we were heading for a little place just outside Llangollen first, a place called Trevor which is home to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.  

It's been somewhere that I wanted to visit for a while and recently Margaret, who blogs at 

https://margaretmyblog.blogspot.com/  came to the UK with her sister and posted about their visit to Trevor and the viaduct and it reminded me that It really isn't that far, and we should go soon.

The plan had been to take the canal boat trip over the viaduct but after walking over it, very carefully and with me gripping onto Jacob with two hands, I decided that perhaps I wasn't brave enough that day after all.  The viaduct is 126feet high and the views are stunning, unfortunately I only managed to get a couple photos because I found that If I kept moving It wasn't so bad, standing still was a different matter.

After we'd had some lunch we drove the ten minutes into Llangollen.  We didn't know it but that day it was the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod.  Apparently the festival started in 1947 "As a means of healing the wounds of WWII" and is held every July.  With 34 countries and 3,000 participants this year its a big event.  We saw the singers from Japan practicing on the River Dee, they were good, very very good.  Later in the afternoon there was a parade with those taking part in their national dress.  Unfortunately we had to set off for home before it started so missed out on seeing what must have been a great sight.  

I'll have to make it something I put on the calendar for next year.

We had a walk along the river Dee, stopping to feed the ducks and walk on the rocks on the way to the canal side, where we did get to have a ride in a barge, or banooke, as he still calls them.  We just managed to get on the last horse draw trip of the day along part of the Llangollen canal. 

The kids break up from school on Thursday so this week he had his graduation from nursery, Joanne sent me these photos of him in his cap and gown 

After several attempts he threw the cap up and it landed on his face, so funny!

 We only have one more Nanny and Jacob Wednesday because after the holidays he will start school, how fast the time goes.

-X-