The last help of a group of good men.

Only two days to go in my working life now. How do you say thank you to those who have given their support to you, some over decades....

The people who I have worked most closely with, those that have managed the difficult day to day stuff while I basked in the glory of their hard work,  how to make a thank you a little more personal.

Well I took them for a little jolly on Percy. They have all heard stories of the mooring, the boat, the community, the lock walk, the two hard winters living afloat. Also Percy was pointing south towards Shardlow and on Sunday or Monday we will be setting off north on the reinvention cruise so Percy needed winding.

I liked the sentiment of asking them to help me point my boat into the direction of my retirement....

So while I still had the management responsibility and the blame would fall on me I took the executive decision to sod off and have a little cruise and a bacon roll. You'll have to excuse the attire, I did not tell them what I was planning just asked them to book a few hours into their respective diaries, so they were not ideally dressed for boating  !

I have never publicised my blog at work. I recently introduced a friend from biking to the Uni who was also a Facebook friend and to cut a long story short James my transport manager found my blog ;-). So I told him he would be appearing .... As I suspected he was a natural at steering the boat - pin straight down the cut, well done James.

It was helpful having so many lock assistants to get us to Alrewas and back.

Two pro's at the tiller. Simon on the left has Caledonia Canal experience and Mike is a veteran of canal holidays and I'm led to believe lots of canal walking. One walk we have in the bucket list is to walk the complete Caldon canal in a day from Stoke to Froghall.... I think a long June day next year is best.

Tony on the tiller here  I have worked with for the longest. He is a seasoned canal boater. Those with a real focus on my blogs will recognise Tony from trips on my other boats, Sylph and Waterlily. Some photos are classified as he is a married man with responsibilities of children now. He was aboard on the last trip on our share boat Sylph  -  in fact I recall he broke the boat  - resulting in an engineer call?

February 2008 was the last cruise aboard Sylph. Click here   this was before too much beer was consumed !!

Gavin second from the left declined to damage my retirement plans. I say he chickened out...

As the title says a group a real good men  - thanks for all your help and support.... the very best of luck for the future.