So, you might ask, exactly how did we end up in a field near Guildford, and exactly who were we asking to come and rescue us… well…

Bank Holiday weekend it was, and after Jim finished work on the Sunday we tootled off to Somerset for an evening in the pub. Tootling being the operative word since Rich was driving Jim’s car and being very careful with it indeed. That said, anyone who’s ever had Jim as a passenger in a car knows how bad he is - let alone in his own car going up the motorway.

Jim took over the driving halfway in order to tackle the country roads at a somewhat quicker pace leaving us to arrive in Somerset sometime around teatime. Unfortunately after some driving around it appeared the local publicans were either shut or not serving food. Eventually though after some more country road driving and a near miss with a lost sheep we found one that was open and providing food. Only we decided to pop back to Jim’s and leave the car there in the name of beer consumption before walking the 30 minutes back to the pub down a very large hill.

Dinner was finally served, and very nice it was too. It also appears that all piss taking of Rich aside that Jim was also to be seen drinking Real Ale, although no photographic evidence appears to exist to back this up. Shame.

So by now you may be wondering what the hell we were doing at 10pm walking back up a very steep hill in the middle of Somerset - infact, so were we. Well, let it be explained as simply as possible - we were picking up two Australians (Mat and Mat) and a homosexual randy dog (Dexter) to take to Guildford to meet Jim’s Dad and Mrs Dad who were hiring a narrowboat for a few days. In addition to being a taxi service we were also going to test out our narrowboat skills ready for later in the summer.

Once aboard the “Guildford Regent” we soon set off, passing a narrowboat of old dears (including one with a startling resemblance to what Julie Walters must look and sound like on LSD) - they’d all stopped after twenty minutes for a cup of tea. The first lock was just around the corner and it proved to be somewhat amusing watching 2 australians in shorts and flip flops, standing in the rain, trying to hold 30 tons of boat still. Thankfully though we managed it all pretty well and before we knew it we were plodding through the centre of Guildford. Now, what must also be explained is we weren’t staying on board, we had to get back to Portsmouth. The plan, once we got off, was to find the nearest train station and get a train back. So 3 hours later we called upon our friendly friend, Phil ‘National Rail Enquiries’ Kitchen, who informed us that the nearest station was, er, Guildford - which by our maths was now the better part of 3 hours walk back. Bugger.

With a bit of bribery though, Phil agreed to join us for dinner in Guildford - after which we explained that he would however need to find us first and that we didn’t exactly know where we were. Around half an hour later Phil rang to say he’d found the canal and a lock - which to our delight we knew the location of - we’d passed through it 15 minutes earlier. Phil was soon wandering towards us, whilst in the meantime we were trying to find somewhere to pull over which wasn’t as easy as we thought. Eventaully though (and we mean eventually) we managed an athletic flying jump to the side and headed back to Guildford.

Oh, by the way this is what happens when an Australian neglects to keep hold of their rope…