Messing about on the river…

The parents of one of my friends at work has a canal boat moored on the Thames and each year a group of the lads from work get together to cast off to explore one of the tributaries of the river. Naturally there is a vast amount of liquid inside the boat that once filtered through the occupants would mostly end up outside of the craft and there were important discussions prior to departure to ensure the barrels of beer, bottles of wine and varied spirits all found a place in the cramped narrow boat. To line our stomachs we had a full blown cooked breakfast on the gas barbeque, washed down by the first of many cold beverages.

I joined the annual outing for the first time this year as we planned to travel up the Wey Navigation for a few miles stopping at the locks and any public houses that we might encounter on the way. It was gentle progress as we chugged along with the opening and closing of the locks the only real exercise, so this left us plenty of time to drink and chat and observe the rest of the world as the rushed about us like busy worker ants.

Ian had come prepared with the ingredients for a very fine and substantial curry that fed us well that evening as we gathered around the small table struggling to find space on it for the food amongst the bottles of wine and pints of beer. We ate well with plenty of cheese and nibbles, a couple of cakes courtesy of Sue and the morning fry ups to soak up some of the alcohol.

Sleeping arrangements were more problematic as the boat only had berths for four and there were seven of us. Steve had planned ahead and brought a small tent that he pitched up on the towpath, I had a blow up single mattress that just fitted in the aisle but Ian had none of that and had the hard floor to cope with.

We had good weather and the fresh mornings with the mist on the flat calm canal and the gentle murmurings of wildlife rising for the day were peaceful and gentle, just the thing after a day of drinking.

It was a fun couple of days, though I do feel we are getting a little too old for this sort of thing now.