Bonjour, Bonjour!

Monday 25^th March; return to the marina

How lovely to be on the way back to the boat, even though the weather was diabolical for half the journey!  Soggy Devon doesn’t need any more rain for a bit and neither does Droitwich – the canal down to the town has only just reopened after ‘Reg the Dredge’, a brand-new dredger, was brought in to clear the silt dumped below lock 6 by the Body Brook, an innocent little stream which winter rains turn into a torrent of silt. 

The mess left after Reg went back up to be lifted out at the marina

CRT is looking into using bundles of tree prunings to slow the water and trap the silt before it reaches the canal.  This was shown in the recent Countryfile about the winter works on the Pontcysyllte aqueduct, where the offside bank was being repaied nearby.

We were accompanied by our new Boat Dog Jess, after the sad loss of our lovely Meg last year.  Jess is another Border Collie, 3 years old, and she's made us realise how much Meg had slowed down over her last couple of years!  She hopped onto the boat as though she’d been doing it for years.  The first command we will teach her is ‘on boat!’ which Meg used to do so well and so quickly - it's very useful when speeding cyclists or nervous people approach, or you're trying to moor quickly in the rain.  After a cup of tea, and refilling the water tank, we went down the towpath to the town to get some bread in Waitrose and give Jess some exercise – she needs a lot!

Primroses by the M5 tunnel

Fortunately the weather stayed dry but it was pretty cold by the time we came back and lit the fire.  Sad news came through this afternoon that a boat has sunk in a lock on the way to Worcester, made even sadder because the owner had only just bought it.