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How does this sound for fun? A long weekend drifting from pub to pub with a group of friends, exploring the countryside, visiting different towns and villages, yet always having your bed a few hundred yards away at closing time?

It’s pretty much perfect for me. Especially as you get to explore one of Britain's most under-valued assets along the way: the canal system, which can take you through the remotest countryside, along a fascinating urban landscape or into the hearts of cities. Even familiar places look different viewed from the waterways.

I went last weekend with six friends, cruising through the Worcestershire countryside. We've been doing narrowboat trips for years – we’re pals from university and its been our annual reunion for more than two decades – so we’ve have got the routine down to a fine art.

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We pick up the boat at Tardebigge, near Bromsgrove, and set off at 3pm. By 3.04pm, Neil is handing round the first bottles of beer. “Sorry about the delay,” he grins.

When we first started these jaunts, boats could be pretty rudimentary. Some made Brixton Prison look well-appointed. These days they come with all mod cons.

Ours, The Hanbury, from the AngloWelsh boatyard, has central heating, double beds, flush toilets, mains sockets, a fridge, a TV, a CD player, a shower and a very small bath (it was called a bath but, to be honest, was more like a washing-up bowl with a plug). Boats can also come with a microwave, a wood-burning stove or a DVD player. They can be quite a home from home – provided your home is seven-feet wide and made of steel.

Coming out of the boatyard at Tardebigge, onto the Worcester and Birmingham Canal, you can go left or right. Left goes south towards Worcester – a nice stretch of canal, but there are 110 locks to negotiate on a return trip. (“People with children go that way because they want to tire them out,” says the man at the boatyard).

Or you can go north towards Birmingham city centre, and then veer off east on the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal – also a lovely stretch in places, and one which, remarkably, has no locks at all.

Guess which direction we choose? Yes, the easy one.

Not that locks are a problem for us old seadogs (canaldogs?) – it’s just that 110 is a lot in a weekend. The conventional calculation is to allow 15 minutes per lock; which means those locks would take 27 hours of sailing time. That’s a non-starter for our group, as we are planning modest six or seven hours cruising a day. After all, you’ve got to allow time for the pub lunches.

FRIDAY

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