The Admiral's Diary
Saturday: When picking up Dude I notice he has re- grown an appendage, he is holding a new mobile phone. After picking up Jake and Joe we end up waiting outside Roman Road Minicabs, whilst Dude is involved in some heavy business transactions at the building society. As we go to leave, a load of minicab drivers rush over the road and accuse me of backing into one of their cars. A particularly nasty female specimen, is intent on bringing matters to a head. Out jumps the man from the SAS to give me moral, support. We look to Joe and Jake to weigh in as well, only to find them looking nonchalantly out the opposite window. Things eventually calm down as we drive off, I ask Jake why the 'St Peter defence'? Sheepishly he rubs his neck and said he was suffering from whiplash from my driving. Bastard! Joe said he didn't dare to move as he had diarrhoea! The Skoda driver from Kent arrives later at 2-30pm. lain explains they had quite a time packing Tom's huge wardrobe and shower kit into his car boot and the back seats. Tom had to hold lain's bag on his lap, due to storage problems! We load up the boats and move west along the canal for a half a mile to the Barge Inn to watch the cup final. Colin is driving the Frederick, which breaks down just as we park. Not a bad start! After the match we turn our boats round to go back towards the Beehive and later enjoy an excellent dinner of Spaghetti from Joe and Colin. Whilst serving Joe informs us that he is on his third pair of underpants! What a pub, gravity feed beer, hand pumps and no one arm bandits. Dude is devastated. Joe reports the loos are adequate but is concerned that the paper will run out by eleven pm!
Sunday: Woken up at 6am by Dude's bed collapsing. At the lunchtime pub we sit in the garden and Dude for no apparent reason decides to tell us about an sordid incident in a New York hotel room that led to him being asked by the NYPD to get on the next plane back to Blighty or enjoy the hospitality of their prison service. Ron, not to be outdone after Dude's confession starts to reminisce about Boogie Street in Singapore and his run in with the Red Caps. Seeing my pen hit my notebook, he decides its time for another round. Joe and Jake go with him and as they get up our table begins to tip. Moving nimbly I manage to keep my balance but not my pint, as Cat and the table head for the ground. As Cat lays trapped on the ground, he has the added bonus on dodging empty and full glasses as they rain down on him. A few of us stay in the pub whilst the majority go back to move the boats up through the locks to where we are. A few minutes later Joe returns to ask if I have the boat keys. As these were handed over in full view of all the others we see through this ploy and offer him a Pint of Bombardier, which Joe accepts without a blush! On the way out Dude kisses the lady Governor's hand telling her that she won't turn into a frog. She aptly replies "But you did though." Sunday lunch involved gravy and custard but not in the order you would expect. In the evening we walk through a lovely village called Rowde to another excellent pub called the George and Dragon. It served three excellent bitters and the evening was topped off with a top class game of 'Chase the Ace'. John H gets into the swing of things by mouthing off about Doc. He tells us about the Doc's idea of washing up. He puts plates and baking trays together and washes the top and bottom of the pile and leaves the rest dirty. He also put eleven tea bags in the pot and when he went to stir it, bent the spoon! The Doc for the last two months has been sporting a mammoth bandage on his left index finger. Now forced to do washing up duties the bandage was removed only to find a slightly damaged fingernail. Another Jessie!
Monday. Some of the Fitz William crew are woken by Jake's bunk collapsing. Joe finds out on the mobile that Steve, the night before has splashed out £20 for half a bottle of Champagne at the Bruce Springstein concert. Ron insists he won't countenance that sort of abuse if Steve goes in his beer whip. That morning we work up the Caen Hill flight. Tom sneaks off towards the shower instead of relieving another crewmember after having his breakfast, a quick-witted John H sends Tom outside, with a flea in his ear but with an unaffected conscience! At the top of the flight as we tie up by the pub we find 'Champagne' Steve has just turned up. A skittle match takes place and the Oldies led by the Dude beat the Youngies by 2 -1 in sets which was unexpected as Joe's game was restricted due to his continuing problems in his botty region. In the evening Dude decided to stay in doors and missed the best pub of the trip. Steve, ever the hiker with the map, goes on a round trip of the countryside and is only rescued when I call him on his mobile. I direct him southwards, only to get the reply where's south. I point out that the big ball of fire in the sky is west, so if he keeps the sun on his right he will go south. His reply was just because you know where west is, it doesn't follow you can find south! This explains why he is always going in circles. Joe tells the Joke of the week, Did it hurt? Hurt! We laughed till we split our sides. Steve eventually turns up and we go in the conservatory to thrash the Oldies 2 games to nil to bring the score for the holiday to 2-1 in the Youngies favour. Captain lain instructs Jake to avoid all pubs with skittle alleys for the rest of the week. The beer again was from the barrel and we were entertained for afters! On the way back we had a midnight team photo.
Tuesday. FROZEN FISH for breakfast, the Dude punished us for having such a good time without him the night before. Luckily we had a spoonful of warm bubble and squeak and an egg to get the fish above freezing point. Jake cut his finger when serving, Joe said it was frostbite! Sums up another memorable Dude kitchen cock up. Some the walkers take the opportunity to walk to Pewsey White Horse. Steve took a couple of maps as he wasn't confident of finding it! Lunchtime in the French Horn. Dude reading his Daily Rage, starts to rant about the poor performance of Airlines. He gets as far as "They should be hauled across the coals", only to be stopped in mid sentence by lain's reply of "I wish you hauled the fish across the coals !" Doc, realising his chances of being elected 'Man of the Canals' were rapidly falling, tells us about another of his missed opportunities on the rumpy pumpy front. A young nubile young lady fooled him on April fool's day. Her mother had left them alone in her country house for the day. James was having a morning bath when she shouted for him to help move a bull in their courtyard! ! ! ! Dressed only in a towel and armed only with a broom, Doc searched in vain for the beast, whilst the young lady undressed and waited and waited and waited. After the morning's appalling breakfast, we had to wait and wait for Tom and Ron to l produce a meal that was barely filling. The only thing there was lots of was the mint sauce, as Tom hadn't read what was on the jars. The instructions said, " Dilute with “vinegar and add sugar". One would think after all. Tom's practice cooking lamb, he might get it right once or twice! Following a dangerous walk along a busy road, we find yet another brilliant pub, the Three Horseshoes, another small pub with a huge railway clock. We had a quiz which will always be remembered by Colin's reply to the question about what was unusual about the opponent to beat the 1993 World champion at Draughts. Colin: “It could have been a seal”
Wednesday: lain and I jump ship to shop in Pewsey and get a taxi via the while horse to All Cannings to get some sneakies in. The pub is closed at 11.30 and still is when Jake arrives. We walk back with the shopping just as the boats arrive and move on. The Bridge Inn at Horton serves Waddies on gravity! Unfortunately it has a 2-30 closing time. lain and I rustle up a very adequate and filling pie, mash and vegetables in about as much time as it takes to write this. Tom ought to take lessons on timing from us. Steve went so far as to say he rather liked it praise indeed. We hit Devizes early getting in some mean beers in the British Lion before moving next door to watch Man Utd give the Germans a big thrashing. ... in the last minute. We returned to an interesting British Lion, to grab a table being vacated by a couple of tattooed leather clad pool playing, lesbians. At the bar a man with his girl friend was sporting a pair of party tits under his jumper, which was in keeping with this year's theme of ladyboys! To cap it all Cat started to get frisky with a Belgium Miss. We are thrown out just before midnight and end up sitting on the bench opposite the Fitz William chatting as Cat told us about “events”.
Thursday: lain and I produce an excellent kedgeree, as the lads' lock down the Caen Hill flight. We keep an eye on Tom after his breakfast and again stop him from having a shower! Lunchtime was rather a rushed effort as the pub closed at 2-30 and we only got there at 2-10! It the afternoon we were treated to a virtuoso performance by Cat who insisted on cooking the rice on our boat, whilst Steve looked after the sausage Stew on the other boat. The meal was very satisfactory, which couldn't be said for the evening's chosen pub, the Lion and Fiddle. After a 1.25 mile walk not .25M as in Jake's pass notes we found this memorial to mediocrity. The only thing of note was the weather. Lightening lit the skies on our return to the Kings Arms, which we passed earlier next to the canal. This turned out to be similar to the pub we left but with one notable exception, the Governor and his partner. Its not often that the locals get kicked out and we are given the afters. Though this was nearly touch and go, as Dude after getting us extras nearly talked us out of them. Maybe he should stick to frozen fish?
Friday: In the morning Joe tells us that the Fitz William is flooded. We discuss whether to stop, but when sewage is mentioned, Steve says we should get as far away as possible! Later when they catch up, Jake, who is sleeping over the water pump is closely questioned why it took till 6am for him to notice it had been running all night. Fortunately for John H's bag and lain's two left shoes it wasn't sewage, only the water flush overflowing. Because of delays we cannot get to Bath but make our lunchtime stop at the Hop Pole at Limpley Stoke. Another brilliant pub. The Academy Award Ceremony is held up due Tom taking yet another shower. In warm sunshine the awards are allocated with Tom winning the Man of the Canal for his second time. In the afternoon we cruise back to the Cross-Guns at Avoncliffe, which has one of the best garden areas I've seen overlooking the River Avon. Around six we leave to make our way to the Beehive. Three of the best pubs one could visit in one day. The boat parking outside the Beehive led a lot to be desired and invoked our only complaint of the week. |
