Hills, Thrills & Spills

After a rather uneventful drive from Odiham to Widnes, we settled in at our home for the night, Widnes TA centre where we'd like to thank them for their great hospitality and mainly, the massive screen in our room to watch the football on. So, at 0630 we climbed out of the camp cots and headed towards Preston Brook Marina for the big "drag launch". Due to a combination of low lying smog and a strong smell of chips and gravy we ended up in a motorway underpass getting some dodgy directions off Gerry Adams' body double with a thumb that could be seen from space.

Finally we found the correct launch sight, and after a quick change of clothes and hair styles we hit the canal. Half a mile into the journey and we encountered our first problem, a tunnel. So out came the boards and we began what seemed like an endless trek up and over the hill that the tunnel ran through getting some strange looks along the way. We hit the water again and began to make some real progress. Before we knew it we were at least four miles in.... and ready for our first break. It was at this point we recruited our first groupie in the form of a black border collie whom we named "supper". The dog took an unhealthy liking to Dave and as we really started to clock up the miles supper just couldnt bring himself to watch us set sail into the sunset and remained ever faithful right by our side. Hours later, we reached the Anderton Boat Lift where we had to part ways with the loyal mutt due to Daves fatal attraction reaching new levels.

The rest of the trip to Middlewich was pretty uneventful due to everyone reflecting on the loss of supper, however, we were suddenly awoken out of our slumber by a deathly shot by the canal sniper as Sid tried to climb out of the canal. Feet from the edge Sid heroically managed to kick his board out of the way of the bullet and took the full brunt in the back which resulted in a double pike Tom Daley would be proud of... and a mouthful of canal water. Due to our heightened awareness of Weill's disease we're keeping a close eye on him. We haven't noticed any major changes apart from a sudden fondness of cheese and he requests that from now on we call him Roland. All in all a good day's work. Tune in tomorrow for our latest exploits.