Visitors

There was a bit of excitement today, visitors in the shape of middle daughter Kirsty and her boyfriend Bob.

Koo hasn't been to the boat in the last two years and as Bob is tall I always fear for tall persons heads.

We had already long ago decided that Crewe was a great place to get them from with great links to London.  We set off in good time not knowing where the station was but David had studied the map how to get there....  
But at the first roundabout David said yes turn left here and there was a sign for the station pointing to the right, which way would you turn?  
Well of course I went right.

We arrived on the outskirts just as Kirsty was calling us to say the train is delayed an hour.  Marvellous.

David saw a Superstore through the trees he took to be a huge Sainsbury's however it was a B&Q, no point in us going in there.

Twenty minutes later the train pulled in and there they were. Actually it had only been a week since we had seen Kirsty but its always a treat.

We headed back to Barbridge where we had left the boat unloaded and scuttled in the The Barbridge Inn where we had called already to put the reservation back.

The food was good, very good, the service was a work in progress, many staff asking all the same questions but non delivery of items despite repeated requests.  But all done with smiles!  I would definitely go there again.

I had Roasted pork fillet and baked white chocolate and strawberry cheesecake. 

The next morning we set off firstly to the water point at the junction of the Middlewich Arm,  the guests were quite chirpy, but it was early days.

The weather started off well but fairly quickly deteriorated ....

We moored up when it got this bad.

Kirsty is a sports buff like her dad and was very happy to moor up and watch The Davis Cup, after which they both cycled off to fetch the car, while Bob studied his book on The Highway Code. Later he and I jumped into the car and went off driving.  He really liked our car too.  We set off not really knowing where we were nor where we were going, two hours later there was the boat.  

The weather had improved greatly by now so off we went again.  The guests both had long turns driving and I have to say they were both considerably better than me.  The sun shone, the birds sang and the wine flowed.

Bob happy out of the rain in the car.

The boy done good.  Ooooo look what Kirsty has in her hands.

Happy and confident

Our mooring tonight, Distant views over the valley.

We sent them on to look for a good mooring, they knew what was good.  Thank you Steve and Denise for your guide to this section of the canal!!!

Supper was courgette and chorizo pasta with cherry and almond tart and extra thick cream.