AV News 177 - August 2009
After lunch in the Bistro we boarded
the narrow boat, 'Still Waters', for a
2-hour trip along the Ashton canal
towards Manchester. Peter Wylde
surprised us with a rendition of a sea
faring song, which put us in the mood.
One of the crewmembers, Mary, gave
us a commentary as we moved gently
along. She warned us that there was
quite a lot of debris in this stretch of
the canal, which often wrapped itself
around the boat's propeller.
The female member of the editorial
staff, mentioning no names, did not like
the boat rocking, but once she got her
'sea legs' she was hanging out of the
window taking photographs of our
feathered friends on the canal side.
The male member of the editorial staff,
however, was busy recording and
snapping, usually strange objects
floating in the canal (I feel an AV in the
making - watch this space!).
45 minutes into the trip, as Mary had suggested, we had to stop for repairs
and pieces of materials were removed from around the propeller before we
were able to continue our journey to Droylsden. Here we turned around in a
very windy marina, which due to the economic climate was really a huge
derelict building site. After struggling to turn the boat around our captain
eventually got us on course to return to Ashton. On the return journey there
was still lots of photos being taken.
Michael Oates was using his
recorder with what looked like Dougal
on the end and we were worried that
the ship's dog, Billy, who was
travelling with us, might take a liking
to it. After another stop to remove a
dog lead from the propeller, (no dog
attached) we arrived back at Ashton
an hour later than scheduled.
As we had been on the boat for
over three hours, there were looks of
horror as we found the museum
closed. There was then a rush to the local Asda supermarket to use their
facilities. Despite the weather and mechanical problems it was a very
interesting enjoyable day, with lots to see and much laughter and friendly
banter among the club members. Thanks to Harry for organising the outing.
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