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.