15th July - 25 plus Narrowboat Cruise

We left home pretty early this morning - 7.45 to be precise. Most of the journey was on the motorway. The directions were quite easy to follow. The only problem we had was when we went down a single track road and found someone else coming the other way! We arrived at Norbury Junction
to find that about half of our group was already there. We had already had a message from Sarah to say she was going to be late. She arrived about half-an-hour late with Richard and Chris. We had two boats so we split into two groups of six.
I joined Chris, Eddy, Rick, Nigel and Anya on the boat named "Defiant"! The other boat was called "Victory". Rick decided to be our "driver" as he did most of the driving last year. It was a beautiful summer's day so we relaxed at the back of the boat reading the newspapers. At lunchtime we stopped at Wharf Junction for a drink.
Lunch was provided by Sarah and Anya - we had ciabatta sandwiches with tuna and cheese, salad, fruit and millionaire's shortbread. We then turned the boat around and headed back towards our starting point. Rick decided to return on the other boat so Nigel and Chris took over the driving. Chris proved to be quite good at driving considering he'd never done it before. When we reached the halfway point, we checked the time and realised we would have to go faster to get back by 4.30pm. We soon caught up with the other boat, but unfortunately didn't get back to Norbury until about 5pm. However this didn't prove to be a problem. The boat hire company were impressed with Sarah's apology so we didn't have to pay the fine! Laurie and a new woman called Belinda met us at the Norbury Inn for a meal. We ordered drinks and were given the choice of having the leftovers from the barbecue for half-price or waiting until 6pm when they started serving food. Most of us opted for the latter option as the burgers looked a little overdone! I think Eddy and I made the best choice as far as the meal was concerned - we both had grilled trout. Richard was not happy with his gammon - he gave most of it to Belinda for her dog's supper! We left fairly early - about 8pm as we had a long journey ahead of us. The roads were quieter on the way back so it was still quite light when we arrived back in Manchester. I'm glad I decided to go on the trip. The long journey was well worth it and the weather really made the day for us.