Beefur gets carved up?

Due to recent technical/signal problems I've still a huge backlog of pics to sort and only caught up with these today - I'd forgotten how funny it was.

 The only way to turn at the end of the canal is to  go through the lock and wind on the Thames; these lads had just set up on the pontoon to fish and I had to explain that I needed to use the pontoon to hold MR's nose with the bow rope whilst G pivoted round (OK so we've been watching too much Strictly!)

 They didn't seem much impressed with the idea of shifting all their gear - especially when I told them it would happen all over again when NB Beefur came through

 We completed our manouevre and then pulled over for brekkie, waiting to pull out behind Beefur once they'd winded

 This Oxford College Cruisers hire boat(Thank you Maffi) appeared to pull out right in front of them

 but the hire boat was well and truly stuck - not in the normal run aground sort of way but balanced on something wobbly - the bow and the stern were both willing to move, but they couldn't actually get it moving. Rather like Delaney's donkey they were pushing it, pulling it, shoving it and shushing it

 So Dave climbed on board and they tried a bit of rock and roll

 around this point Sue and I realised Beefur was drifting off unattended

 Well held Sue!

But Dave, being the very experienced and helpful boater that he is, eventually cracked it! We later found out that Mortimer Bones had got stuck on the same submerged obstacle. The crew on the hire boat were extremely grateful and spent the rest of the day apologising for taking up our time and holding us up - as if we were in a hurry bless them. Later in the day they told Sue that they had always had good weather when hiring and that, in a way, they'd quite like some bad weather so that they could don Sou Westers and look like proper boaters. It seemed a bit wimplish to tell them that, 'proper boaters' didn't go out in the rain if they could possibly avoid it! A great bunch of guys - I hope they had a good time.