Happy Father’s Day

Sunday 15th June

We started the day picking Elder flowers to make cordial as requested by Alice. Some D of E hikers came along and were looking decidedly lost. I know it was a cliché’ but it was the girls who came across to us to ask where they were, while the boys just scuffed their shoes and looked decidedly shift by the lock beam. They had taken a turning ‘too soon’ and so they had now lost where they were on the map. Luckily their new route had brought them parallel to the required path and so they had ended up in the right place by accident. Then a supervisor arrived with the greeting “there you are!”. She thought they had got lost – they had – but they convinced her that they were just a bit ahead on schedule and that she had been looking for them too far back along the route.

We then had a pleasant conversation with the boaters moored in front of us, fruit liqueurs, cordials, jams, pickles and prunes in port were today’s topics. We’ve not really got summer under way yet but are already making plans for the autumn harvest. Off at last and there were a few more boats about today so more locks were set in our favour than yesterday. Up the last three of the flight and then through Bruce tunnel where the landscape changed from river valley to wooded rolling hills along the short summit before we started to descend down the other side towards Devizes.

We stopped early for lunch and then decided to close up and head home early as we have an appointment tonight. A few weeks ago Graham went and brewed a beer at Aylesbury Brewhouse Co.,a local brewery, a birthday present from his Soddit mates. Tonight it is being served at his local , a birthday present to celebrate Father’s day. There was a rookery near our chosen mooring and something disturbed  the birds and they all took off at once and the sky went very black. Unfortunately I Graham didn’t get to the camera quick enough so most had settled again when he got this picture.

Brenda