Retracing our steps

Monday 26^th April; Commandery to Perdiswell

After the usual late evening sirens along the main roads nearby, it was a very quiet night.  We hadn’t quite decided whether to go up-river to joining the Droitwich Barge Canal, or to turn round, so Dave took Meg off to Fort Royal park before we went down the lock, and I nipped up to the Zero-Waste shop ‘Pack it In,’ which is in the Old Market Hall in the Shambles, to get some dried apricots. 

                                    Worcester now has smart new recycling bins in town

In the end we decided to turn round as the forecast is not that brilliant over the next few days and we need to be home before the weekend.  So after disposing of the rubbish and cassettes we turned – not without difficulty because of the wind – and started back.  At Blockhouse Lock the willow trees were shedding their wiggly catkins.

While I waited for the lock to fill, this beautiful boy started strutting around.

He was clearly out to impress, puffing out his chest and fanning his tail, but his lady love was not impressed and soon scarpered.

 

We enjoyed this boat name – while you are wondering how it’s pronounced, you notice that the owner has given you a little hint.

It was a bit early for lunch when we stopped at the park by the mural (bridge 11), so while I had a quick play with Meg, Dave rubbed down and prepped a rusty patch on the port side while the towpath was on that side.

We carried on to Perdiswell after lunch.  The sun was bright and the canal was sometimes quite sheltered (and sometimes really not).

 

Past glories remembered at bridge 12

At Bilston top lock the volunteer was letting down some water, but let us up straight away.  He told us that the duck we saw yesterday, then with 12 ducklings, had started out with 13 the day before.  When we saw her a bit later that afternoon, she was down to 9.

We had moored up by 3 in a good patch of sun.  Meg was agitating for a walk before we had even finished tying up – this must be one of her top 3 moorings.  So off to the park she went with Dave, and I followed a little later to test out my knees.  I had to stop running a couple of weeks ago as my left knee was playing up – arthritis I think, and when this happened with my other knee maybe 15 years ago my doctor said, you need to strengthen your thigh muscles to support your knee.  I did, and haven’t had pain since, well a bit recently because I have been very slack over the winter and not been keeping fit.  So I got back to being good with my exercises and now the pain's nearly gone and I can start running again.

I had my shower, then discovered that the pump that empties the shower tray wasn’t pumping.  My Man that Can abandoned the newspaper and came to sort it out (I had to cook tea, you see).  Sod’s law says that the drain hole would not be on the towpath side, so it all had to be done from indoors.  After some sloshing about, and poking with a bit of water pipe that was knocking around, it still wasn’t clearing – so he tried to blow whatever it was through, and eventually it worked.  We know, from cleaning out the sump on occasion, it was likely to have been an accumulation of dog hair that had dried in the pipe!  Though how so much of that gets down the shower we are not entirely sure.

I can't remember exactly what we had for tea, but it did include the last of a big bag of purple sprouting broccoli I bought from the 'Veg Shack' near the marina before we left the other day.  There is a footpath leading from the main road back to the canal which crosses the original line by a derelict lock, and I forgot to download the photo as it was on my phone, not the camera.  So here it is.

 

Derelict lock near the Droitwich Junction canal

7 locks, 3.5 miles, a little run and non-hurty knees