On July 1st 2013, we finally began our long-anticipated retirement cruise. Setting off across the Middle Levels and up the River Nene in order to access the canal network at Northampton. The plan, such as it was, was to head for the Ashby Canal in Leicestershire and then revisit the Shropshire Union Canal which we first cruised in 1975 on our honeymoon.

If you remember me from any of my previous incarnations, or you just want to talk canals, please feel free to drop me an email at les [at] mitchellhynd.co.uk. It will be good to hear from you. I post regular updates to my Fecebook page so, if you are a Facebook user, you can send me a friend request. Facebook knows me as "Les Mh".

This picture, by the way, was a very rare pint of Guinness in The Shroppie Fly on the "Audlem Fifteen " flight of locks, celebrating our return to the Shropshire Union, and to that pub, after an absence of thirty eight years.

                          Les