I won’t lie, taking the helm of the jolly red-painted Eurasian Wren narrowboat seemed daunting. OK, I’d watched a couple of how-to videos and had a handover with a reassuring member of the boat-hire team, but was I seriously expected to manoeuvre the 47-ft-long vessel through locks, aqueducts and tunnels on a weekend cruise to Bath? Apparently so!
Setting off from Hilperton Marina at Trowbridge, it was a lazy cruise to our overnight stop at Bradford-on-Avon, a miniature Bath sprinkled with old weavers’ cottages and cloth mills. I zig-zagged along, slowly getting the hang of the tiller. My friend Karen,
