The Bosley flight on Thursday afternoon was wonderfully sunny and passed smoothly. 2 hours for 12 locks in a mile seemed like a reasonable result. Especially as we waited for one hire boater who closed both bottom paddles before he tried to open the gates! I suppose it might work - if you are quick.
We then had an easy Friday moored up all alone at Oakgrove. We waited the arrival of our visitors. Then had a short cruise on the only dull day of the holiday to Sutton Hall with the Captain's sister Chrissie and her husband Chris, We were in good spirits and cheered ourselves with cake and Bucks Fizz. Sutton Hall was as delightful as ever, and we were attracted by their New Year's Eve party where it suggests we book "Carriages for 1 am."
By Saturday night we were enjoying a very good curry at Marple Spice, but not before we trawled the charity shops for any old films on DVD. This followed on from our thorough enjoyment in watching Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember (1957), We found a copy of an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway starring Vanessa Redgrave, a 1938 version of Pygmalion scripted by George Bernard Shaw himself and couldn't resist The French Lieutenant's Woman - one of our favourite films. As they were all originally given as freebies with The Daily Mail, we just made a donation.
We trundled onto our mooring at Furness Vale early Sunday afternoon and said goodbye to Princess Lucy for a while. We hope to manage one night aboard in October before she has a galley refit which will take her out of action for a while.