Guildford, Guildford, Guildford

After a quiet night and walking the dogs up and down the towpath, we left Send and headed towards Guildford. We passed through some beautiful countryside with fields of poppies and water meadows, along with some desirable residences!

Cows enjoying their morning constitutional

The dogs seem to be getting more used to the boat now and spend most of their time snoozing on the back deck. However, today Lola started taking an interest in where we were going and stood staring out at the passing scenery

Can I steer now?

.More fierce locks, weirs all over the place and many sharp bends make this an interesting river to explore

Exiting a lock past yet another fabulous house

For a while a heron kept a short distance ahead of us, repeatedly taking off and then landing another 50 yards up the river. Eventually he soared away and disapeared over the A3

The cute heron expertly captured by Angela

We arranged to meet Sam, Jamie and Josh on the river outside B&Q in Guildford. We made it there a little before the appointed time, and so I went into the store in search of a new propane tank, but again, no joy. I returned to the boat to find SJ&J had arrived.

Sam, Jamie and Josh on Banjo

After showing them their cabin, going through the abandon ship routine and introducing them to the purser, we were ready to set off. (I may have exagerated this a bit). The river banks for some distance are scattered with lots of wooden sculptures, some weird, some beautiful and some very cleverly carved from complete trees

Amazing hand sculptures

We went through the centre of Guildford to Millmead lock where Sam dug out the bag of bread she had brought with her, and gleefully threw a handful onto the bank by the lock, recreating a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds

Birds appearing from all directions

We turned shortly after the lock and headed back in the direction of B&Q where S&J's car was. The trip back was very much like the earlier one, but backwards!

Josh finally flaked out

We said goodbye to SJ&J after a lovely afternoon, and headed back into Guildford again

A shag surveying the scene from high up on the top of a pylon

We went back through Millmead lock for the third time and moored almost immediately in a tree lined stretch of river, opposite a boat yard (who incidentally also do not have any propane gas!)

Tonight's mooring in Guildford