Weather

Using a cunning combination of Met Office website maps and the age-old looking-out-of-the-window technique we decided that the auspicious time for our trip to Pontcysyllte aqueduct was 4pm. (Well, the Met Office suggested 4pm and looking out of the window suggested 'not now'.) But when the micro-climate that MariainWales lives in delivered bright sunshine at mid-day we leapt at chance and set off, waterproofed, booted and gloved. Seven minutes later when we got to the end of the road, it was raining again and I was all for turning back. But I bowed to Maria's local weather-wisdom and on we sloshed.

The moment we arrived the sun emerged, so Maria's and my cameras likewise. The thread of water we'd come to see, that enables narrowboats to chug gently through the air, is a product of that arrogant era when the British thought that they could, and should, achieve the impossible and the outrageous. In this case they were right and 208 years after completion the bold brick arches still carry boats, 38 metres up in the sky, over the trees and the river. Us too, over and back, taking pictures all the way of water and iron, bolts and bricks, boats and their constrained wakes.

Back at the information centre it was the rain's turn again but since we were inside that was OK. Just as we finished, the rain eased and we climbed down into the valley, wild garlic underfoot and cherry and birch trees over our heads, to see the aqueduct columns, silhouetted against the sun, plunge solidly into the River Dee. When the spattering started again we hoped for a rainbow over our crock of engineering and woodland gold but it didn't come. No matter, we'd had the gold anyway.

Coming home on an exposed road we had magnificent views over weather-paintings on the fields - a product of three weeks of snow, two days of rain and today's intermittent sun.

I'll upload my Pontcysyllte pictures elsewhere and post a link when I do.