Fun and Friends at Fradley Junction

We slipped away from Whittington yesterday in a light drizzle……..

…… and, after we passed Whittington Rest Gnome, the precipitation became heavier and persisted all the way to Fradley Junction.  This meant that James had a special quiet time at the tiller under an umbrella for 2 hours and Doug did whatever he normally does inside ‘Chance’ on days like this. 

When we arrived at Fradley Junction Doug came into his own and set lock 17 for us to get down to the moorings below.

As we needed to be pointing in the direction of Great Hayward when we leave Fradley, James reversed into the lock (very skilfully and very luckily) without touching the sides, much to the complete disinterest of the two volunteer lock keepers on duty!  Photo shows ‘Chance’ going the ‘wrong’ way through the lock but you’d never know.

Backing out of the lock the normally very busy moorings at this time of year at Fradley gave us a pretty good choice of places to rest our fenders.

In the afternoon, friends Chris and Les from nb ‘Eleventh Heaven’ drove over to see us.  An,otherwise wet, afternoon was enjoyed by us all over a bit of light refreshment before Emma and Nick arrived on nb ‘Marpessa 2’.  Evidently our meeting with them yesterday didn’t put them off our company too much and the six of us went to The Swan for a meal together.

The ‘two gigglers’ – Doug and Les.

Our two newest water-based friends Emma and Nick (she’s definitely Emma and not the Duchess of Cambridge!)

Chris, Doug, Les, Emma, Nick and James looking happy but hungry.  ‘Murk’ the lab. was with us but he seems to have blended in nicely with background. (a bit of him in the bottom right)

We all retired to ‘Chance’ for coffee and liqueurs and to continue our noisy babble until the early hours of the morning.  

A great evening again and a very good meal at the Mucky Duck as usual.