Essex

Far from the Essex county of olde Englande, this Essex is a little village on the banks of the Connecticut River. Weaving our way up a narrow channel in a wide river, under a railway drawbridge and a high road bridge, Max just loved it. We could hardly see through the mist and occasional rain but even with that it was obvious that Essex was a pretty place, nestled in deeply wooded riverbank. We dropped the anchor opposite the village, where there was, for once, loads of open space for our big boat to swing to her hook.

A brief explore ashore revealed that the village was picture postcard perfect, a beautiful main street, little cute stores and lovely landscaped parks. Our timing, however, was less than perfect. There turned out to be a local steam railway and Max was very keen to go but we'd arrived late on Sunday afternoon and it wasn't open again till the next weekend. Shame, but perhaps we should visit the Connecticut River Museum, which looked very interesting. Open all week, except Monday. Darn.

However, as usual, the public library came to the rescue. Libraries here are superb - British ones were good but these are in a class above. Clearly the areas we are traveling in are wealthy and libraries are generously funded by the community, most of them have brick paths where many bricks are inscribed with the names of donors. The children's section invariably has not only books but computers, toys, puzzles and other amusements, and we have rapidly learnt that the best way to get our email done or catch up on the news is to take the kids to the library and log onto the wifi that they all have.

We enjoyed wandering Main Street, dipping into the stores and cafes, and the kids found their amusement in the parks and the little beach at the town dock. Essex, Connecticut, gets a thumbs up from Ty Dewi.