Off with their heads!

Tuesday 27^th April:  Perdiswell to Oddingley

Last night we could see the supermoon through the trees, but unfortunately the thin cloud prevented a clear photo.  We could see more detail through the binoculars, but it wasn’t really that super.

After a quick trip to get some milk from M&S, we were away at 10.  The lovely sun of the last few days had disappeared and it was cloudy more or less the whole time.  But it warmed up a bit and there wasn’t much wind.  Blackpole and Tolladine locks were in our favour, and we paused in the first to check the drain hole from the shower.  It turns out that the pipe bends to join the one from the basin and there is only one outlet, which explains why poking a bit of pipe down it didn’t get through to the outside.

There were cowslips in flower at Blackpole, or it may have been Tolladine.  I should have taken a photo, cos they won’t be flowering now!  As we approached the Offerton flight the contractors were on their way towards us.  I know they have to trim the grass but really, do they need to blow the bits off the towpath?  It’s a bit, hmm, suburban isn’t it, and now there will be grit all over the grass too.  He did stop as we approached but there was a lot of dust in the air.

And all those lovely flowers we saw on the way down had been strimmed to oblivion.  I know the area round the lock needs to be clear, but all the way to the ends of the lock surrounds?  Really?  It does mean there will be access to pick blackberries later, but all that lovely pollen and nectar for the bees has gone for a burton.

 

Survivors

We arrived at lovely Oddingley in time for lunch, and were surprised to find the moorings completely empty.  So we picked our spot and decided to stay till tomorrow.  We have seen very few boats out and about this time, and most of the hire boats were still moored in Lowesmoor Basin in Worcester yesterday.  Though later on, there was a flurry of time-shares.  After lunch Dave washed off the dust from the starboard side.

We weren’t quite in the right place to get the house and church in the picture as well, and the cows with their calves had disappeared over the far side of their field, so this is the best I could manage.

Then we all walked over the level crossing, down the lane to the footpath and up the hill to the woods.  I didn’t take a photo of the view, because I took several last year.  Besides, there was something totally fabulous to see under the trees. 

The primroses were still flowering, the birds were singing and it was glorious.

What is so wonderful about carpets of bluebells in woodland is that they mess with your sense of perspective, and for brief moments you can imagine it is literally a ‘sea of bluebells’ – I’ve seen this phenomenon elsewhere, and it seems to be leaning trees and odd bits of fallen branches in the distance that create the illusion.

Anyway, I love it.  We could even smell their perfume in the air.  The stroll back across the railway at Dunhampstead and down the towpath was a bit of an anticlimax after that.   

The Fir Tree pub, which closed down a while ago, is now a farm shop.  We would have checked it out, but it wasn’t open at the time we passed.  We made it back to the boat in time to beat the rain.  Dave fixed a loose bolt on the fire, and soon after that the fire was blazing.

 8 locks, 4 miles, a sea of bluebells