Out of hours cruising and song references

Today we started cruising at six o' clock.

- pause while people who know us fall of their chairs in amazement and then recover -

No, that's 6 pm of course.

We have stayed put in Hopwas since yesterday afternoon.  No, I had never heard of it either but it's lovely.  Last night we dined and chatted at the Tame Otter with Sue and Richard of Indigo Dream fame.  Amazingly they were minus dogs on this occasion.  Respite care I think they call it.

Anyway I digress as usual.

So we pottered about in the heat of the day.  I painted the well deck floor.  Then a very friendly lady called Christine stopped for a chat and we learned she knew Sue and Richard as she had been the previous occupant of their mooring at Limehouse.  Small world ain't it.

Anyway I digress.

So we set off at six pm when it was getting cooler and headed for Fradley Junction where the Coventry Canal mets the Trent and Mersey.  An iconic location in the canal world.  Now we don't normally criuise in the evening and we learned a couple of lessons in so doing.

a) everyone else is moored up for the night so you incessantly have to keep slowing down to pass moored boats -  a real pain, it really slowed our progress.

b) when you do arrive at or near your destination, all the decent mooring spots have been taken so you have a long walk to the pub.

I was getting fed up because the canal was narrow and shallow and Herbie fnds that hard going and makes lots of complaining noises in the transmission. Then, passing slowly through the village of Whittington with it's pretty back gardens, a man walking a dog cheered me up. As we passed slowly under a bridge he said " Cor, that's purring like a kitten that is". At that moment, we were.

Another man cheered me up today by calling out as he passed  "Hello, I read your blog".  So that's who the other reader is.  His boat was called Barbara Ann, so he might be a Beach Boys fan, which is fine by me.

On the subject of songs, we passed a boat with a sign saying Cuts on the Cut a floating hairdresser!!  I was immediately reminded of the song by Sid Kipper concerning pirate hairdressers with a chorus whch goes

With a Hey and a Ho and a Wash and Go
As we comb the Spanish Mane.

if you can bear it, the rest of the words are here

PS thanks for all the comments about Will's mum.  It seems she get's about a bit, don't she?