Sandrine, Chris, Molly and Keith.

 Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th June 2023 at Scholar Green.

On Tuesday morning, Sandrine and Chris had to return "Burslem" to the hire base. Coincidentally, this is "Heritage Marina", and MM is already booked in there tomorrow morning. The four of us and the two boats cruised along that last stretch together, which includes the pretty little stop lock and lock cottages.

 Flying above the cottages was what looked like a First World War biplane, but it was actually a lovely wind vane. M declared that she would like one!

 R helped Chris and Sandrine take their boat through the stop lock while MM was topped up with water.

Sandrine and Chris duly returned their hire boat to the marina and we moored up MM outside to give them a hand. 

Our plan had been to take taxis and trains tomorrow to pick up the car from Aston on our way home; however, Chris very kindly offered to drive R down to Aston, about 50 minutes away, to pick up the car so that the car will be here tomorrow when we moor MM up. It was so very kind of him as it made our trip home tomorrow so much easier. Sandrine joined M on MM until R and Chris got back with the two cars. Then we said cheerio to them. A lovely, and very interesting couple; we will definitely stay in touch.

 By then it was mid-morning, so we cruised on up to the outskirts of Congleton, where we moored up. Our friends Keith and Molly live in Congleton and they kindly drove to where we were and took us out to lunch at "Brownlow", a lovely local restaurant. It was wonderful to see them again, we have not seen them since well before Lockdown.

 Early on Wednesday morning we cruised back down to Heritage Marina where we moored MM up on their service bay since they had not yet decided where to moor her while we are away. Darren, the new owner of the marina, will move MM in due course and plug her into the mains electicity.

By about 9:30 we were in the car and starting off towards home. Huge thanks to Chris for helping R to bring the car up yesterday, it made it so easy to get going this morning.

Two Days: 4 miles, 1 lock and 2.3 hours

Trip: 20 miles, 16 locks and 12.6 hours