"Shwesty's are doing it for themselves"

Mum said, "We won't need our raincoats, it's hardly rained at all since I started this walk" We drove through the pouring rain along the A303, passed through Taunton town centre, twice, before arriving at the Park & Ride on the other side of town. We finally set off at 11.00 am, and it stopped raining. (phew!)
We set off to find the "Taunton & Bridgewater Canal" Caitlin comandeering the map reading. It was an easy route to follow & the weather improved as we went along. Queueing up at the shop in Creech St Michael, we attracted the attention of a A.C. heating & Gas man. (We were wearing the T Shirts) He was really interested, as his son is planning to cycle the route. We accompanied him back to his van so he could jot down the web details.
Back along the canal I, Lauren, was starting to flag. It was tempting to pick up a bottle of wine & spend the rest of the journey sunbathing on the boat ride to Bridgewater, soothing my soon to be blisters in the cool canal water. Mum said "No way" a) There is no wine & b) We are not going to Bridgewater. So I had to K.B.O....
It got to be a bit monotonous after a while, but two interesting attractions kept us amused.
The first was at the boat hire place. On the cafe wall was a mural of the canal. Next to it was a handle which, when turned, gave an audio history of the canal. Wind too slow, and the droning voice stopped, wind too fast & he couldn't keep up. We tried a few times but never got any further than "It's good to see the canal actively alive again..." obviously he wasn't A.A. !
The other was the Somerset Solar System. Astronomical milestones along the route described each planet in a weirdly surreal way. For example "Jupiter, the Big One. With it's giant red spot & 16 moons, a dense complex atmosphere, posing many questions. One vast storm in space, Jupiter needs a book, not a plaque" Must have been written under the influence of some very potent cider. Sophie would have loved it. We all sang the song she taught us about learning the order of the planets. (Encarta '98)
We finally left the Canal & headed towards Middlezoy, or so we thought. Caitlin (the control freak) refusing to let go of the map took us to places we didn't want to go. Across fields of cows, ploughing through long grass & nettles until the Somerset drainage system brought us to a halt. We had no choice but to jump across. Trekking on, two miles from our destination, we came to another stop. Where we thought there was a bridge, there wasn't. It started to rain. Caitlin's feet were sore & our only choice was to go a long way round via the main road, or was it? No, good old Mum came up with an alternative parallel route (so no cheating) to Burrow Bridge.
We took a taxi back to the P & R in Taunton & Caitlin drove (again) like Yvonne's Mum in training so we sped back to Salisbury singing along to "Help"