A Visit from Erika and Dan!

Saturday 8th September, back in Newbury.
It was one of those beautiful misty mornings. Perfectly still, with the water mirror-smooth.

We stood for a long time on the towpath in the sunshine talking to Lizzie and Richard from "Dragonfly." They, like us, were planning to go up to Newbury today. They wanted to start early, but as we were expecting Erika and Dan to arrive by train, they agreed to wait so that we could go up together through the locks.
While we were talking, two hire boats arrived and moored up briefly next to each other. They were crewed by fearsome-looking, but good-humoured pirates out for a stag weekend in Newbury. There were so many of them that they had had to hire two boats.

They went off to go through the next lock while R walked to the station to meet Erika and Dan. It was great to see them and wonderful that the weather was so kind, for the sun shone all day in a clear blue sky.

Both ourselves and "Dragonfly" had to reverse a little way up the canal to a winding hole (turning point) so that we could turn round. This year, there have been very few boats on the canal, but today was the exception and to our surprise, within a few minutes there were five boats going through the lock or waiting for the lock.
Luckily "Dragonfly" and MM were able to keep together and we started off towards Newbury just behind the jolly band of pirates brandishing cutlasses at all and sundry! The first lock is called "Monkey Marsh" and is interesting as it is one of the last two remaining"turf-sided" locks on the system. Originally, most locks on the K&A were "turf-sided" with sloping sides of vegetation instead of the usual straight walls. "Monkey Marsh" is also unusual in being very long, so we were able to get three narrowboats in at once to save time.
It was a very pleasant cruise to Newbury, sharing the locks with "Dragonfly." Dan did quite a bit of driving, while everyone helped with the locks.

In the centre of Newbury, there was only one mooring space, which we gave to "Dragonfly" since we had delayed their departure from Thatcham. Initially, we moored MM alongside her while R, Erika and Dan walked through the town to see if there were any other moorings available. There were some to the west of town, but there was a very noisy Beer Festival (and disco-beat pop concert) going on in the next door field, so R thought it prudent to stay in the centre of town and moored up just outside the K&A Trust Cafe - probably not a "proper" mooring but no-one seemed to mind.

We had a very good early dinner in Strada in the town, then R walked Erika and Dan back to the station for their train home. They appeared to be quite taken with Newbury and we all studied the properties for sale in the Estate Agent's windows - some of which were actually affordable!!
We rounded off the day by watching the Last Night of the Proms on the BBC i-player - a perfect end to a very happy day.
Today: 4 miles, 5 locks and 3.0 hours.
Trip: 259miles, 268 locks and 218.4 hours (369.5 total).