First Night in Higher Poynton

As it was our first night on board 'The Manly Ferry' we decided to eat to celebrate the start of another adventure.

The closest pub is The Boars Head ...

The food and beer were superb, but we were more interested in what was going on with the fellow drinkers!

I could only pick out a few words of their conversation, it went something like ... 'polish, washing machine, walk around the marina, Ocado delivery, independent giant cross word, postprandial nap, lets run another load', but mostly a constant whine of  'how the fck are we ever going to win at Crick?'

Then the penny dropped - it was the Saturday night Braidbar owners club meeting!  Of course, I should have spotted they were all wearing Braidbar owners club t-shirts!

Before the meeting started they all sang a rousing rendition of 'God Save our Bruce'.

I noticed they wern't drinking beer but a cocktail of Craftmaster polish and washing powder.

The landlord loved them having a meeting at his pub as they polish everything in sight, the brasses were superb.

The meeting carried on for about an hour.  The general gist of it seemed to be that the Braidbar boat must be immaculate at all times, polished to an inch of its life and that Braidbar clothing MUST be worn at all times, including sleepwear!  They were also instructed that the Braidbar boat must stay close to its home base at Higher Poynton for the first five years, it could only then travel to further exotic waters but only with the permission of the illustrious leader Bruce.  All boats MUST have a washing machine which, without fail, was to be run every Monday (Tuesday was allowed in exceptional circumstances).  If any of the members were heard discrediting a Braidbar boat or worse making nice comments about a rival boat make, they were to be executed on the spot! 

As we left a few of them were polishing a car in the carpark.  I couldn't work out what sort of car it was as it had been converted into a replica of a Braidbar.

I should add that The Boars head pub is about 100 metres or so from the Braidbar yard at Higher Poynton and we were moored up a few hundred metres down the canal at Elm Beds caravan park.

We both had a fantastic night's sleep but I was woken at at 4.30 am by a distant chanting of 'Wax on Wax off' ....... Bruce has taught them well.