Fred and Becky's arrival....

---

Becky and Fred arrived on a sunny afternoon and came back to the boat. On the way we saw our Algerian friend and his wife again who chatted for at least half an hour and invited us to attend the opening of their restaurant in December 2011. He told us the mayor of London was coming over, as Lyon had established partnerships with London. “Who, Boris Johnson?” Mike asked “White hair?” Fred said. “Yes, yes,” the man replied “A nice man, but a bit crazy.” It may be an option if funds allow....It looks like the area is going to be affluent and popular; an international footballer whose name I can't remember has already bought a penthouse flat overlooking the marina. I wouldn't mind a bit of hob-nobbing with the rich and famous!
Once back on board we poured drinks and took our guests out for a spin in the boat so they could see Lyon from the river. They were as impressed as we had been. We drank wine, beer and started on the Jack Daniels Fred had brought with him as we pootled around the river, snacking on cheese flavoured croustillant crisps (think giant Nik-Naks) which Fred instantly became addicted to and decided must have been 70% crack. We waved at the onlookers who waved cheerily back most of the time. Fred said he felt famous. ..Maybe it was the booze.
We got back into the marina as the light faded and Fred took a position on the roof to walk the boat under. We got through and he said “Fuck, that was close, your light was about half a centimetre off”. Mike and I looked at each other and laughed. We'd flattened the light on the way through the last few times and guessed it had only been the extra two people on board and full fuel tank that stopped it snapping off. Ah well, no harm done.
Becky and I were getting ready for our night out whilst Mike and Fred sat out the back and drank more JD. We could hear them giggling and getting louder, then heard Fred shout his approval of Mike's spear gun.
“Oh, he's definitely drunk, he's getting his toys out to show off.” I said to Becky. Boys are always boys, no matter how old they are.
The next thing we knew there was a shout from outside, followed by lots of noise and fred came inside looking for a torch.
“What's going on?” Becks asked
“Mike's lost the harpoon gun.” Fred said
It turned out Mike had been trying to demonstrate the accuracy of the spear gun by shooting at a fag packet floating in the water. He hadn't checked the resilience of the tether string first and it had snapped as he pulled the trigger. Mike was now in his shorts and snorkel, looking for his flippers and ready to dive in and look for the spear. Luckily, Becky and I were able to persuade him that diving into a dark marina he didn't know the depth of, after a lot of booze, in search of a sharp stick was probably not a good idea. He agreed to look the following morning.
We had a brilliant night in Lyon. We started off in a bar in the market square we'd found before. Fred had tried to get drinks in what looked like a Michelin starred restaurant. Ignoring our protests that it was a posh restaurant and they definitely would not serve people just drinks, he walked/stumbled into the doorway, waved at the waiter, gestured a drinking motion and said “Pint? Here? Beer?”. As anticipated, the waiter shook his head, turned up his nose and pointed to a bar down the road.
Once in the bar we ordered pints of Leffe ruby – a delicious red berry infused version of Leffe blonde, and were tickled to have it served in pint sized goblets. They were nearly as big as our faces. I asked the barman to order us a taxi and we headed off to the quays alongside the Saone.
Not far from where we'd caught the funicular railway a few days earlier was a string of bars all bustling with people. We were really hungry by now and found a table outside a bar serving cheap drinks. It was next door to a takeaway, so we bought our cheap drinks collected a couple pizzas and had a munch. We then decided it was time for sambucas. Fred tried again in his limited French (pointing at what he wanted and saying it really loudly) to order drinks. This time he was successful and came back brandishing 8 sambucas. Mike and I were impressed. We'd not seen sambuca anywhere in France. We told Fred that and he said that they'd told him they didn't have any initially, but he had spotted it and had gone behind the bar to show them where it was … you can always count on fred bear to hunt out sambuca!
From that point on, my memory becomes a tad hazy!! We went on to a karaoke bar, sang, danced chatted to an English lad called Callum who was there in the sandwich year of Uni and realised that we were in a gay bar when fred got dissed by a queen (something to do with his clothes – it happened outside when Fred and Becks went for a fag – no pun intended – so you'll have to ask them the details!!) All in all a brilliant night … and, contrary to my fears, I'd stayed the distance and kept up with the drinking in my traditional form. Mike's birthday must have been a one off.

---