Saturday 8^th August; Vines Park to Worcester Pitchcroft

After a quiet night we awoke to sunshine and a lovely morning.  I left Dave replacing the seal for the weed hatch cover at 8 am and went to Waitrose – if you have a loyalty card and spend over £10 you get your newspaper for nothing - it’s not hard to spend £10 if you buy wine!  The young gentlemen ensuring mask compliance was a delight – I hope he can sustain it till the end of his 12-hour shift!  Last night’s noisy groups in the park had binned all their rubbish – not so the youngsters who had left their chips round the corner.  I disposed of that as well as our rubbish and the rope and plastic we picked up on the prop yesterday.  We kept the fender.

We were already in shorts at 9.30, sun-screen applied and hats on bonce

s as we left Droitwich.  As usual, we thought we were far enough from the wall of the road bridge but we weren’t – the profile is circular and we always seem to catch the offside edge.

There are plenty of reeds along this canal, and at this time of year they are very attractive with their purple flowering spikes;  the depth seems to be ok though.

The heat was building and we were grateful for the shade along some of the stretches.

As we approached the top Ladywood lock, we were delighted to see a boat just gone in.  These are double locks and can be quite heavy, so help is always welcome.  We tooted, but the gates kept closing.  We tooted and waved, but they didn’t know what we wanted – luckily they waited for us.  As first-timers – and first-timers who had taken over the booking at 2 days’ notice when their relation got caught by the new quarantine regulations – they hadn’t been able to do any prep and weren’t aware these locks were for 2 narrowboats.  But you wouldn’t have known, to see them work, that they were novices.  We made an excellent team and were down those locks in record time. 

 

We even discovered a mutual acquaintance – it’s amazing what you find out about people at locks!  We stopped above Hawford locks for lunch, while they went on.  The bottom lock at the junction is regularly inundated when the Severn is in flood, and the paddle gear shows it, with rust and dried mud usually obvious.

A moment’s inattention in the bottom lock while we got the lifejackets sorted led to a near-cilling – thankfully a link on the rear fender snapped and we weren’t caught up in a disaster!  The steering was all ok luckily.

It’s not far down to Bevere lock, and then to Worcester.  We had a passenger for a short while – having a rest in the heat I shouldn’t wonder -

 

and further along there were several spots where the locals were cooling off

It wasn’t long before we were mooring at the racecourse.  Disgustingly, the pillar with the mooring notices on, which should maybe have had plants in, was full of stinking rubbish instead – 3 kitchen bin bags of poo bags, take-away rubbish and cans (and just a little bit of boaters’ rubbish).  When we bought the boat there were loads of ‘extras’, such as scented bin-liners, which we  never use – but at last a use for the bin-liners!   The car park bins, where boaters can leave their rubbish, were overflowing but I wasn’t about to take them back to the boat, they stank. This photo was taken the next morning – already a poo bag, a can and some take-away rubbish had been dumped by 8am.  I sent the photographic evidence to the City Council and hope something gets done.

I received an automated acknowledgement on the Monday after this, saying it would be dealt with on the next visit by the team which takes place every 14 days.  I hope this doesn't mean litter only gets cleared every 2 weeks! 

We walked with Meg to get the mooring ticket then got an ice-cream from the little kiosk just before it shut.  Most of these bins were overflowing too.  Then to Meg’s delight off we went to the racecourse where she galloped as far as the two-furlong marker, chasing her ball.

It was cooler under the trees and out of the direct sun, but still too hot for Meg.  We had all the hopper windows out and the side hatch was on the shade side, so the boat cooled enough for us to sleep.

9 miles, 9 locks including Bevere on the Severn.