SEVERN UP

WEDNESDAY 23RD APRIL 2008

We awoke to the sound of heavy rain on the roof, but again by the time we were ready to descend the last Avon lock that would send us out onto the River Severn, the sun was shining brightly.

We had sixteen and a half miles and one lock to travel to reach Worcester. This is the widest piece of water we are likely to cruise up unless we do The Thames. Fortunately with recent, relatively dry weather and the sunshine, the cruise was delightful and the life jackets that had been deployed were un-necessary.

We stopped for lunch at Upton upon Severn, and again a delightful riverside jumble of buildings, most of them pubs, some not yet reopened following the floods. We moored by the Swan Inn, who had only reopened on Good Friday, they gave us a warm welcome and good beer. Up the High Street we found a great butchers, something that in the south of England we have been deprived off, stuffed lambs hearts for dinner tonight.

We arrived at the huge double Diglis locks just before they closed at 6pm but I had phoned ahead to the lock keeper and he had the left hand lock prepared for us. There were long plastic poles at each end to thread the mooring lines through to stop the boat moving about, but it was a gentle giant of a lock and we smoothly rose to the top. We tied up for the night immediately after the lock and before the entrance to the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.

Following out poor start on the two rivers, wedging under the bridge at Stratford and running aground, Jacquie did admit that in the whole the rivers had been a pleasant and not too scary an experience, apart from witnessing the recovery attempts of a narrow boat that had sunk in January, but we have decided that we do prefer the canals, as there is so much more freedom as to where you can moor, and with more traffic, they feel friendlier.

TEWKESBURY TODAY

TUESDAY 22ND APRIL 2008

A quick wash down of the superstructure before going through Strensham lock as we were meeting, in Tewkesbury, with John and Barbara, friends from our years in the Childrenswear industry, they would also be bringing some chums of theirs, who were visiting from Scotland.

By the time we had got moored up just before the last lock on the Avon, the sun was breaking through. The timing was perfect, when we walked up to the Abbey, our chums were waiting at the front entrance.

The Abbey is inspiring, but not overpowering in its scale and judging by the pictures of the July flood the original builders knew where to place it where the waters wouldn’t get to it.

Amazingly Tewkesbury shows very little of the floods devastation. The town has recovered very well and is a delight.

Our mooring place was perfectly selected with a public bench right alongside the rear deck, so after a sandwich lunch in the garden of the Bear Pub, which was right opposite were Skyy was moored, we returned to the boat for coffee, which was taken in the sunshine.

ERIC PULLS IT OFF

MONDAY 21st APRIL 2008

Can't say much about Sunday, it rained, we puzzled, ate, drank, read and waited patiently for Monday. Ohh !! I nearly forgot Jacquie baked a cake, splendid.

9.30 Monday morning and this sturdy little tug called ERIC hoved into view. A very thick line was thrown to us and the tug lined itself up to pull us off backwards. The line went taut and nothing happened. The tug repositioned itself and again the slack was taken up, again nothing happened for a moment and then the skipper really opened the throttle, the water at the back of the tug boiled, the rear of Skyy healed over and then suddenly the stern slid of the mud and we were free. HOORAY!!!

We waved to the two chaps on Eric as she stomped passed us on the way back to Wyre and we continued at our more stately pace to stop at Pershore for much needed supplies. Nice town, some of the architecture had a Spa like look to it.

We moored for the evening at Strensham Lock and walked into to the village of Eckington. The centre of the village was full of thatched, black & white cottages, a stout Norman church, a little post office. They could have made Larks Rise to Candleford here. The sun had broken through the clouds and it was a beautiful evening. Thank goodness we are on the move again.

GETTING BORED

SATURDAY 19TH APRIL 2008

Rescue arrived in the shape of a narrow boat called Dream Maker, or so we thought, but sadly we had to give up the effort after about 30 minutes. Although we could swing the bow right out across the river we just couldn't get the stern to break free. Thank you, crew of Dream Maker, for your much appreciated efforts.

We are now prepared to wait until Monday morning when we have been promised a tug fron the Avon Authority. Fortunately we filled up with diesel and water and empted to loo tank before we left Evesham. We also have two more 1000 piece puzzles to keep us from going stir crazy.

STUCK IN THE MUD

WEDNESDAY 16TH APRIL 2008

Next stop on the Avon was Bidford, a most attractive village with all the shops that you might need, including a hardware shop and a butcher. However its most important feature is its multi arched bridge built in 1482 by the Monks of Alcester, and still in use by today’s road traffic, I doubt there is much that we can build today that will still be in use in 600 years.

We over nighted in the George Billington lock cut, George died, very young at 37,but he donated the funds for the building of the lock which was completed in 6 months with the help of boys from the local borstal. He was able to see the finished job two weeks before he died. Sadly the very attractive Fish and Anchor Inn is on the other side of the weir stream and was tantalizingly out of reach. Need more wine!!

This lovely river is disappointedly defaced by tattered scraps of plastic festooning the trees and shrubs up to a height of ten feet approx. obviously left behind by last Julys flood. I don’t know how nature will clean up it’s act without the intervention of man who left behind the mess in the first place.

THURSDAY 17TH APRIL 2008

We cruised into the centre of Evesham under the Workmans bridge, which I thought was rather splendid to have been built just to allow the workman to get to work, but on crossing over the bridge I saw that it had been named in honour of the then Mayor, Henry Workman, silly me!!

We moored in the shadow of the Abbey Clock Tower and walked into town and to the station to meet Ashley, Jacquie’s son, much needed reinforcement for the forthcoming trials and tribulations.

The weather in the afternoon was splendid, so we decided to stay put in this great location, and I set about painting out the damaged to the hand rail inflicted by the Stratford, Clopton Bridge.

FRIDAY 18TH APRIL 2008

We left with the intention of staying over night in Wyre Piddle, just because we liked the name of it.

We passed through a couple of locks with beautiful old mill houses alongside before we approached a mooring place to stop for lunch, we discovered it was now a private mooring, we did the right thing and motored on, only to run hard aground.

After much pole pushing, rocking of boat, transferring of weight and revving of engine. Ashley and I got down to our underpants, donned our wellies and entered the water, again after much shoving, heaving , but not sweating this time, we managed to move it about a metre, but it was still stuck fast. The nice man on the end of the phone at The Lower Avon Authority said that if we were still in the same place on Monday, he would get a tug to us. We are doing a puzzle and writing blogs at the moment awaiting a passing boat that might be able to pull us off.

CRUISING HIGH

SATURDAY 12TH APRIL 2008

We had moored overnight just before Wootton Waven, where the canal passes high over the road on a aqueduct and about a mile and a half further down the cut there is another cast iron aqueduct. this one crosses not only a road, but a railway line and a river and in both these situations we soared high above them. The sensation is really strange and as the top of the iron trough is just level with the rear deck of the boat and there is nothing to stop you walking off into space should the urge take you.

After that excitement there was a flurry of locks to bring us back down to earth as we finally descended into the famous Bancroft Basin right in the centre of Stratford upon Avon. Lots of gongoozlers watched our maneuverings into our chosen mooring space. Gongoozlers is the proper name for those folk that hang around locks and bridges, fascinated by the doings of boat people and hoping that somebody will get it seriously wrong.

Steak and chips was the order of the day and Marlows was the venue, their rib eye steaks were done just as we wanted them.

SUNDAY 13th APRIL 2008

A lazy Sunday, reading the papers, a nice walk along the Avon, carvery lunch at The Thatch and then an afternoon snooze. Lovely!!

MONDAY 14th APRIL 2008

We bade Kim & John a tearful farewell, as they took a taxi from Stratford back to their car in Wigrams Turn Marina. Our first, proper week cruising the canals with them, had, as when we had been on a canal holiday with them before, been so enjoyable in every way. See you soon guys.

We attended to boat chores and then dropped down the one lock from the Basin and turned left to head up the Avon to find a berth for the night. On the left there is the the Old Bathing Place. The river widens at this area and was obviously used for bathing. There is now here, what is know as a sanitary station, a place for filling with water getting rid of rubbish etc. except it is so far up the bank that my 20metre hose was 2m short. No mind, we had a peaceful night in this beautiful place.

TUESDAY 15th APRIL 2008

Almost up todate with the blog and good news I managed to upload photos onto the blog this morning. The secret is to get up at 6am, wipe the ice from inside the windows, crank up the computer, make a cup of coffee and hey presto, I got transfer speeds up to 500kps. More pictures to go, but thats the answer, by 8am speeds had dropped down to 50kps.

The main reason for doing this blog was to keep friends a family informed of what we were up to. However it's not surprising that other canal people discover the blog and we have had a couple of comments.

Del & Al of NB Derwent6 sent us their good wishes and will keep a look out for us, reciprocated!

John & Cathy are about to move on board their boat 'Mamaduke' and set of on their on adventure. We will keep a lookout for Mamaduke and wish you good fortune.

Paul of WaterWayRoutes has added our blog as a link to his website

Thankyou for your interest and good wishes and apologises for the delay in acknowledging them.
Andrew of NB Granny Buttons, also had picked up on our Blog and did some considerable research on our boat's name 'SKYY'. It is the name, in the correct font style, of an Amercian Vodka. Why the original owner of the boat chose that name, we don't know. I understood that he was a shop fitter, but we only met him once on our first veiwing of Skyy and there were more important things to consider at that time.

We debated changing the name, but leaving the cost implication aside, we decided we actually like the name. Sue, from NO PROBLEMS said she thought of it as SKY WHY, and I have said to a view curious folk, that we asked the painter for Sky Hi, but he misheard us, HA HA!!

DISASTER

We left this lovely spot in the river and gracefully turned around to head back through Stratford onway to Evesham. I thought I was perfectly lined up for the correct right hand arch of the bridge when the current caught the rear of the boat and swung ito the the right. Result, wedged across the arch. Fortunately a helpful soul took a rope to the top of the bridge and with him pulling oneway, me pushing the bow the other, Jacquie on the helm, we eventually got it through. A gongoozlers delight. A little damage to paint and to cratch cover, but mostly to dignity.

A quick bike trip back into town to Woolies for some gaffer tape to patch small tears in cover, which was just as well as by the time we moored near Welford on Avon, it was tipping it down.

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

THURSDAY 10th 2008
17 locks to Heaven, having done 4 of the 21 locks yesterday, that is what the Hatton Flight is called when you arrive at the top, a just reward for the effort of working all those locks. Fortunately the Waterman Pub welcomed, but walking towards the pub we say this duck and moorhen nesting on of the moored boats, aint nature cute! and spring on the way.

Found a farm craft centre were we aquired a pea cane for hoisting T mobile dongle, but still haven't managed to get sufficient speeds to upload pictures yet, but most importantly came back with some Stinking Bishop. Kim thought it was her feet smelling today, but remembered it was the cheese, delicious. Moored for the evening at Turners Green, with lots of little hairy goats for company on the other side of the cut, This is just before the junction with the Stratford Avon Canal at Kingswood Junction.

FRIDAY 11th 2008

A very squally showery start to the day as we turned onto the Stratford Avon Canal. We immediately stopped to do a hand operated pumpout, first time for John who was happy to do the pumping rather than being at the stinky end.

The Fleur de Lys provided a good sandwich lunch, we returned to the boat suitable fortified and to bright sunny weather but the wind had got up to an uncomfortable level, so we moored up after a couple of locks for a Siesta, before moving on when the wind had dropped.

This canal is very picturesque with it's unique barreled roofed lock side cottages and the centre split to the bridges so the line from the towing horses could be passed through so preventing the old bargees from having to unhitch the horses.

We had interesting encounter with a swan who wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, it had a nip at all of us as well trying to deflate, the bike tyres.