Bye, Bye, Boat

This morning I said goodbye to Tyseley. Mike is moving her to Cropredy for the start of the second leg of the tour, and we are now in Camberly, at a very odd guest house, before we troop off to Fleet to do our show this evening.

But I am getting ahead of myself. We have had two very successful shows at Thrupp – excellent turnouts for both, at last. The weather the first day was a bit of a worry, and we set up in a smaller corner of the garden, in order that the audience could have some shelter. It had been raining all day, and we were not expecting there to be a great deal of interest, judging by the attendance in previous venues when the weather had been inclement. We needn’t have worried – though the audience was smaller than last year. And we definitely made the right choice not to go indoors, where we would never have fitted everyone in. Mike had come down early to see his show – and give us notes… But, fortunately, he did not have much for us to change. I wonder if he has just given up trying to get us to do it right? There followed a pleasant night aboard Tyseley with lovely people and wine.

The next day, the weather was much improved – indeed the sun was out, but it still seemed a little presumptuous to move away from the prospect of shelter – especially when the sky darkened to almost black about half an hour before we were due to start. But the evening cleared into a beautiful one, and the audience was even bigger than the night before. In fact, it was almost impossible to get everyone in – even with lots of people standing. It does, though, make for a better show, I think, to have the audience quite closely packed… there seems to be more of a sense that we are all part of one thing – and I really enjoyed the show. There followed a pleasant night aboard Tyseley with lovely people and wine. And whisky.

And I managed to get to a laundrette. Everyone is glad.

So Tyseley has gone – and we are on the road. Again. The only problem was that Mike left at 9.30 this morning, and the van needed to have its brakes fixed, and was not going to be ready ‘till 12, which left us homeless. Adrian took the van into the hospital at 8 – and after we had gone down and watered up with Mike, Anna, Ruth and I were to be found sitting by the side of the cut, reading. But the day was saved by a very kind boater who took pity on us, and plied us with tea and biscuits. And we all had a fine morning, in the end. Apart from Adrian, who was still stuck with the van. Sorry, Adrian. Anyway – the three of us were quite cheerful when the van arrived…

We had been given the most useless map in cartographical history to work with. The crowning glory if which was the Road That Does Not Exist. But we got here. And here is a ‘Guest House’ run by the Theosophical Society. Which I think is really an off duty retreat. But it has beds, and breakfasts (vegetarian), and it is home for the next couple of days. And the grounds are amazing!