Surfacing again!

John, it was fine to meet you and your friend as well at the Stockport Folk Club gathering at the Midway, and to hear your robust singing! It was a fine session, with quite a variety of singers. I'll provide more notes when I'm back in the States.

We had a lovely time yesterday motoring Ian Bruce's narrowboat "Moonlight Shadow" from Stockport to Buxsworth. We started out with bright sunshine, stopped to walk down the 12 locks at Marple (?) and admired the great stone viaduct, had a lovely lunch and then weathered a raging thunder and lightning storm for half an hour. I was learning how to steer the boat while Ian scrambled ashore to lift or swing bridges around before we sped through. Several small canal serpents got tangled in the prop and flotillas of ducks narrowly avoided being run down. All great fun for us and we made it to the Navigation Inn at the Busworth Basin well before dinner. We did about a half an hour of singing later in one of the public rooms and people seemed appreciative. Alas, none of our new friends from the Stockport gathering were able to join us (maybe they are still wandering the rural roads looking for the place!). We could have used some more singers, perhaps, but we were really quite ready to turn in early.

Today it's on to Fleetwood to connect with Ron Baxter and Ross Campbell at The Steamer.

We both are recovering from colds we probably collected on the flight over but we're having great fun!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble and JudyB