Douglas Diary Sunday 8th May 2016 (Day 19). We had a thunderstorm last night. They were having supper in the garden of The Poachers, our kind were not allowed inside, but they had almost finished eating when it started to thunder and then rain. We returned to my long kennel, I wasn’t frightened and I comforted the puppies. This morning I took them for my early morning walk and it was dry and warm with the promise of another nice day. We are now heading east on the Llangollen to return to the main line of the Shropshire Union which will take us a few days, we will then turn south. It was as my bearded one was leaving The Poacher’s, driving my Long kennel away from our mooring I heard this cry over the sound of the engines “Grandpabeard, Grandpabeard ” I alerted my bearded one as I know this is one of his names. He seemed surprised that anyone would know him so far from home this came not from the long kennel but from the shore. Sure enough we had forgotten the two young, they had been playing on the shore and were now running along the towpath after us. He stopped of course and collected them with assurances that he was just testing their resourcefulness and that M&D really loved them. We had a lovely cruise to Ellesmere where we moored and provisioned. We said good-bye to our family who left for their journey home. We were sad to see them go. My picture today is me keeping an eye on the two young puppies (about 3 in dog years) who were very well behaved. Love Douglas
Sent from my iPad

Dear Douglas,
Thank you for having us to stay and for teaching us all about the canals. We had such a wonderful time. We slept all the way home and dreamt of you.
We would love to come up again to see you.
Love Bumble and Trooper.
It was lovely to have you and I enjoyed teaching you all about the canals. I hope we will see each other again soon
Love Douglas