Elle, Matt and Eva!!

Sunday 24th June, 2012
Elle, Matt and Eva arrived at 11:30 and parked at Thatcham Station. We all had lunch and set off towards Newbury. Just as we were leaving, "Bewick's Swan", (the "Party Boat" with eleven guys on board that we saw yesterday) passed us on its way back to Aldermaston - it seems they had a good night in Newbury! "Oh, was it Newbury?" one of them asked us, grinning. They were certainly much more subdued than they had been the day before!!!  Perhaps their boat should have been renamed "Sore Heads" for the return journey!

Matt had done some boating in the past but Elle was a novice. M showed Elle how to do the first lock and she picked it up so quickly that for the rest of the day M retired to the galley while Matt and Elle crewed brilliantly.

Eva was good as gold and wore her very smart life-jacket near the locks (which will also fit Penny in due course).

Eva spent part of the afternoon watching the DVD of Snow White and then finally having a nap wedged into the narrow space alongside the bed!

We had some lovely "re-meetings" today: John from nb "Beverley" was walking the towpath on the way to Tesco's, nb "At Last!" was in one of the locks going the other way and we also passed nb "Dragonfly" moored up next to Victoria Park in the middle of Newbury. Eva found a great puddle to jump in!!

In the evening, we all went to Pizza Express for an excellent early supper and then returned to MM to watch the second half of the England v. Italy match.  Fortunately the supper was a lot better than the football!! No doubt the eleven inebriates on nb "Bewick's Swan" would have made a better team.....

Today: 4 miles, 6 locks and 4.1 hours.
Trip:  119 miles, 70 locks and 75.1 hours (219.7 total).