Preparation 30 August - 1 September

Andrew arrived towards the end of Wednesday afternoon to drop off his bag, and then took his car to Nantwich and caught the train back. I met him and we wandered off through town for a swift pint before heading g back to the boat. 

Once back at the boat, he gave me a gift that he had found on a stall somewhere: a disk with the Vegvisir rune carved on, with a central opaque circle.  Which meant I had to own up to what I was going to put away for Christmas.. I had commissioned a  Vegvisir on a chopping board from Bamboo Studio Crafts, otherwise known as Jim on nb Islonian.

Jolly pleased with eachother 💕 

Thursday really felt like the calm before the storm. 
We had only one task, unlike the gardening team, mainly Mike, rushing about gardening like fury.
All we had to do was meet up with the IWA branch chair, another Mike, to retrieve the gazebo from his car and pop it into storage ready for the weekend.  That done, time to snug up in the boat for the promised rain to do its thing.

Friday and an early start to meet up with Helen, of the Whitchurch Waterways Trust, to go to Ellesmere and pick up our trip boat. In previous years, CRT have lent us a work boat, affectionately called the Blue Hippo.

But none was available this year, so ABC Leisure have stepped into the breach and lent us one of their day boats.  Such Luxury!
We were tasked with bringing nb Lazy Days from Ellesmere to Whitchurch,  a 4 hour cruise in uncertain weather. Warm in the sunny intervals but a cool breeze and good chance of rain.

She's sensitive on the helm, and surprisingly deep draught - she could find a bank of silt that Vegvisir would not have really noticed, and grounded quite solidly once so that we had to deploy the pole: also developed a breaking wash quite quickly (bad for the canal banks, time to slow down).
 So a fun boat to drive, and a strangely truncated view from the helm. But we made good time, bang on the predicted four hours.

Back at Whitchurch it was time to get the IWA stand out of storage and get it set up.  We've done this quite a few times by now so that went smoothly.  Other boats were arriving and stalls going up so that by Saturday morning everyone was poised,  ready for lots of visitors and lovely sunshine forecast.

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