Stratford ....well not quite!

Tuesday 11th April saw Maria Jessie leaving Napton for her first proper trip of 2006. Heading off up the Grand Union the plan was to go to Stratford and meet up with Claire and David who intended to come up the Avon from Stourport. Tuesday evening, moored at Offchurch, saw me with a raging toothache and feeling pretty miserable.

A phone call to my dentist in Kenilworth first thing on Wednesday got me an appointment late afternoon the same day - so we took the short trip to the mooring adjescent Tescos in Warwick to wait the day out from where I could get a lift to Kenilworth. We popped into Tescos during the morning and there we saw our friend Alistair - we invited him and Debra to drop by for a cup of tea. They arrived at lunchtime, we told Debra our plan was to stay there overnight once I had been to the dentist. "Are you sure it's safe here" she said. "No problem" we said. Not totally convinced Debra called her son who is a policeman for his opinon. "No problem" he said. Dental visit over we invited Alistair and Debra back on board for dinner in the evening. It had just gone dark when there was a bang on the door of the boat. Standing there was their son, complete with bullet proof jacket "just checking up" on us!. We slept well that night knowing that Warwickshire Constabulary were protecting us from bandits! .

Having lost Wednesday as a cruising day we realised that we were not going to be able to get to Stratford and back in the time we had allowed for our trip. Val called Claire and found they were having some problems with their boat so they would not make Stratford either but would drive to join us on the Friday.

Thursday saw us climb the Hatton flight in high wind and rain, thankfully we paired up with another boat to share the workload. We made our way up to the Black Boy pub where we turned and moored up for the night, and thankfully the rain had stopped and the wind abated.





Gluttons for punishment we made our way back down Hatton on Good Friday, ably assisted by Clare's husband David. We met Clare at the bottom and had a beer at the Cape of Good Hope folllowed by a nice meal at the Waterman.

Saturday saw us go back through Leamington , and we moored up for the night just short of Long Itchington. It's a really nice place to moor - highly recommended.

Sunday was the last day of our trip, and we were joined by my Mum and Dad and James. We climbed the Stockton flight and rewarded ourselves with lunch at the Boat - Sunday lunches there are excellent, and good value too. Then the short hop back to Wigrams Turn, and the end of our first trip of 2006.