Worcester to Lechlade

We had two options for getting to the most important (for us) wedding – Richard and Diana’s – either back up the Birmingham and Worcester Canal and turn right onto the Stratford on Avon and then the Grand Union, or down the River Severn and back up the River Avon, then onto the Grand Union. As we never like to retrace our steps if possible, we decided on the rather longer rivers’ route. It’s around 40 miles as the crow flies between Worcester and Lechlade – and three weeks by boat!!

So - down the Severn to Tewkesbury (scene of quite recent calamitous flooding) where we did a sharp left into the River Avon (license £50 for a week), moored up for the night (£3) and perused the rather poor Avon booklet we had been persuaded to buy (£6). We had a stroll round Tewkesbury that evening to see if there might be a nice restaurant, and were rather surprised, as we sauntered down the high street, to keep coming across groups of people in sackcloth carrying staves or pikes or such like! We popped into one of the few shops still open at 5.30pm on a Sunday night, an antiques shop, and were informed by the owner that we had just missed Tewkesbury’s amazing Medieval Festival, where one of the largest gatherings of period war re-enactors in the country had staged the Battle of Tewkesbury (1471). Typical!!!!!! We always miss these types of events by a couple of days or so – but in this case by only a matter of minutes!

Needless to say there were no restaurants in the town, only ‘pub grub’ which we didn’t fancy, as we can almost always do better than that on the boat! (Thank you Alex! - Louise)

We stopped for a brief shop and spent the next night at Evesham at the ‘Workman Gardens’ moorings, and then pressed on to Stratford.

At Stratford we managed to find moorings opposite the famous theatre, which of course we looked round. We also went up the ‘new’ tower which had been incorporated in the rebuilding of the theatre, for an excellent bird’s eye view of the town and treated ourselves to a good meal in a restaurant called ‘Lambs’ - a short stroll from the boat moorings.

The next day we were off the Avon River and back onto the British Waterways Stratford on Avon Canal. First stop was one mile up by a bridge where we knew we were close to an Asda and a Tesco for more supplies. That evening we eventually reached Wooton Wewen for the night after a long slog behind a very slow hire boat, so the next morning we started at 8am to get ahead of it, then we did 17 locks up to the junction with the Grand Union, where we had lunch, then we did 17 locks of the Hatton flight down the Grand Union mostly in a pair with another boat – Gemma. (They are double locks here and it’s much better if you can go as a pair). Alex was in fighting form so he did all the locks while Louise manoeuvred the boat. We stopped for the night four locks up from bottom lock and the town of Warwick. Louise had been stung on her foot a day or so before and it had started to swell up quite badly, so we made enquiries of walkers on the towpath as we cruised through Warwick and were told there was a Tesco with a pharmacy at Bridge 46. And sure enough there it was, and they recommended a visit to a doctor’s surgery half a mile up the road. An appointment was available in half an hour. Amazing!! Antibiotics prescribed. They did the trick pretty quickly.

We got soaked to the skin doing the 10 Stockton locks in the morning but by the afternoon it had brightened up for the last 3 locks to Napton Junction. Alex vowed that he would not get wet like that again and we would just stop if it started to rain heavily. Then the next day he FELL INTO THE CANAL trying to lasso a bollard from the side of the boat when it had drifted too far away to step off. So he did get soaked again and cracked a rib into the bargain as he just failed to leap to the shore!

We also had our first dose of canal rage that day when an irate woman in a boat coming the other way accused Louise of ‘stealing’ her lock. Louise had gone ahead to prepare the lock for Alex to bring the boat in, and as it had only about 6”of water leakage in the bottom, she emptied it before opening the gate. This ‘woman’ was convinced the lock had been full and as they were coming the other way they should have had priority. Alex could hear her screaming at Louise from where he was 150m yards away! She was wrong, but would not admit it, of course. But it does leave a sour taste in the mouth for a bit.

In due course we got to Oxford, having spent one pleasurable night on the way in Banbury, where they have done a marvellous job on the canalside and have even retained the historic Tooley’s boatyard in the middle of the new shopping centre! We entered the Thames (£95 for 15 days) and moored close to Osney lock for three nights. This gave us a chance to visit Oxford itself and also to catch a train to London to see Emily and new son Herbie (Alex is a grandpa!!!!!!!!!!) Alice also managed to come along and we all enjoyed a very sociable lunch.

A few days later we were in Lechlade after a lovely trip up the Thames. The river is very picturesque here with low lying water meadows on either side and plenty of places to moor ‘away from it all’ – apart from the local livestock that is.

We had arranged to leave the boat in a boatyard at Lechlade so that we could have power to keep the fridge going and Jamie and Janine arrived to pick us up to give us a lift to the hotel at Cricklade ready for the wedding the following day. With him Jamie had an exchange ‘Calor’ gas bottle (our Yorkshire Energas bottles were the wrong sort to exchange in this area) and two parcels we had had delivered to him: one was an inverter for Louise so that she could use her hairdryer on the boat, and the other an inverter welder so Alex could do a welding repair on the weedhatch cover.

However, as Alex was closing up the boat prior to joining Louise, Jamie and Janine in the car, he was just tidying away a rope that Louise had been drying clothes on, when the end flicked up into the corner of his eye. At first he thought nothing of it, but then as his vision started to blur he wiped his eye with a tissue. Instead of tears on the tissue there was blood!!! The corner of his eye was actually bleeding though it didn’t hurt.

Well, it looked terrible, but the show must go on: the bleeding stopped very quickly and normal vision resumed. An hour’s visit to A & E at the Great Western Hospital the next morning produced the necessary antibiotic ointment and life could return to normal.

Out hotel room for the wedding was excellent: Alex could have as long a hot shower as he wanted and Louise a long hot soak in the bath without worrying about use of precious water. (No room for such luxury on the narrowboat).

We had fish and chips, professionally catered, at the bride Diana’s parents’ home on the Friday evening, where Nigel, her father, made us feel most welcome and we met other members of the wedding entourage.

Louise’s ex-husband Stuart and his wife Tracy didn’t make it to the fish and chip supper but Louise and Alex did manage to bump into them in the hotel just before setting off for the evening so, after 15 years a meeting before the wedding did finally take place.

On the day itself, our close friends Michael and Sylvia and Derran and Angela met up with each other for the first time ever in 25 years (!) and we all had a very jolly lunch together.

The wedding at 4pm went very well in the lovely village church and then we all repaired to Diana’s parents’ home where a marquee had been set up for the occasion. Drinks and canapés first, then an excellent meal and dancing and all the usual paraphernalia of such an event. Altogether a lovely weekend. (Thanks are due to Derran who was responsible for most of the wedding photos attached here – our own were few and pretty poor.)

Poor Jamie was a bit hung over in the morning (!) so Derran and Angela kindly gave us a lift back to our boat where we prepared for the return part of our journey.

UK adventure – Castleford to Worcester

We needed to return to England for the whole of July for two weddings and Alex suddenly decided to turn this into an 'excellent adventure' by going to the two weddings in the narrowboat! The canal system allows us to get within a few miles of each one. It may take a little longer than going by car, but should be more fun!

Peter of Zee Otter very kindly gave us a lift to Aiguillon station and we caught train, airport navette and plane back to Leeds/Bradford airport. The plane was late leaving France so we missed the last airport bus to Harrogate and had to get a taxi. The driver dropped us off in the street where Matt (our car mechanic) had told us he had left our car, but we couldn’t find it! Then we realised we were in the wrong street, and as soon as we got to the right one, there was the car! So a late arrival back at Newton Aycliffe.

We realised that the trip by boat to our first wedding in Worcester was going to be a bit tight so we only spent two days at home, sorting everything out before we set off.

We made good time from our home mooring at Castleford to the start of the New Junction canal getting there about midday. Louise called the lockkeeper at Keadby to book passage for the following morning only to be told that it would be too early for British Waterway’s attendance - 5am – so there would only be an afternoon pen out at 5pm. We were due to arrive in Keadby by early evening anyway so we would have had to wait a whole 24 hours or so until the next evening’s pen out. Alex rang the lockkeeper back to ask what time today’s pen out was – 4 o’clock! Perhaps we could just make it by 5pm and still go. The lockkeeper said OK and booked us in. He had asked where we were and we said at the New Cut – but not at which end! I think he assumed ‘his’ end because he felt sure we could make it in time. But the New Cut alone takes 1.5 hours at the best of times. We opened the throttle wide and went for it.

It’s a commercial waterway, so the speed limit is higher than we can achieve but the first fisherman we passed at about 6 mph complained, ‘Is this a race or summat?’ Actually, yes – a race to catch the tide! We were lucky with the bridges and the lock was in our favour and we managed to shave 10 minutes off our best time for the New Cut! Then we were on the Stainforth and Keadby Canal. As we approached Thorne we came up behind a charity barge going very, very slowly, but they let us overtake – great! So we got first to the lock in Thorne as well. Another boater helped us through and warned that the swing footbridge just beyond was faulty but was about to be fixed open. It was. Excellent! As we arrive another boat was trying to set off through it but had a novice at the tiller, who completely cocked up and her partner waved us through. Phew! We watched for them at the next lift bridge but even after we had got through it and lowered it, they were not in sight so we motored on. The last thing we needed was to be boating with a novice through all the lift and swing bridges to Keadby. Finally we got to the sliding rail bridge just before Keadby and as we arrived it opened as if by magic. (We have waited three quarters of an hour for a long enough break in the trains to let us through at this bridge before now.)

Alex rang the lockkeeper and as we arrived he swung the road bridge and we motored straight in to the lock. 4.30pm!!

When the keeper gave the all clear we shot out onto the tidal Trent with about 4mph of incoming tide to help us and by 7pm we were at Gainsborough. We could have gone on to Torksey but after 11.5 hours non-stop we felt we needed a break and anyway an early start the next morning would get us to Torksey at ‘set off’ time anyway, which it did. We sat at Gainsborough and watched the tide turn at 6am, gave it half an hour to get ahead of us, and then set off. By 4.30pm we were in Newark for our second night. Castleford to Newark in two days – must be a record!

From here on, we thought, we can relax a bit as we have gained a whole day already, but when we got near to Willington on the Trent and Mersey we found they were having an open weekend and there were boats galore queuing at locks, moored boats all over the place to slow down for etc. etc. But finally, the next day, we had the climb up into Birmingham through 24 locks – all against us. Louise’s back was still playing up (over-energetic keep-fit!) so Alex did them all! After a 7am start that morning, we got to Gas Street Basin at 6.30pm – Alex totally knackered. Will and Laura came for supper bringing an Indian takeaway with them and we drank a toast to their recent engagement.

In the morning we stopped just south of Birmingham on the Birmingham and Worcester where Will met us again and we had lunch, and then he took us to see his new house. As we travelled down the B and W canal we learned that the Droitwich arm had just been re-opened the previous weekend, after many years of dereliction, so we decided on a slight detour to Worcester via Droitwich, and the River Severn.

It’s always fun to travel on canals which have just been reopened because all the local inhabitants are so enthusiastic about boats travelling through again they come and chat about how it used to be and how nice it is now etc. Great!

So finally we got to Worcester and into the Diglis Basin where Alex had sweet-talked Jackie into letting us stay for a couple of days with electricity (vital for Louise’s hairdryer for the wedding reception picnic!).

After an afternoon and a following morning discovering Worcester – up the cathedral tower for an eagle’s eye view of the city – the taxi arrived and got us to Spetchley Park Gardens for what turned out to be an excellent post-wedding picnic in the park, followed by dancing and a hog roast – and it didn’t rain! (It threatened to all afternoon but didn’t actually do it). A taxi back to the boat at 11pm completed the first leg of our crazy journey.