NB Bonjour: Tibberton in the rain

Thursday 28^th March; Perdiswell Park to Tibberton

How misleading early sunshine can be! We looked at the forecast – how best to use the few dry hours before the rain set in? Well the first thing was the gas ran out as I was cooking my porridge so at least Dave could change bottles in the dry! After breakfast Dave took Jess over to the park to give her a good run for an hour, then we moved off about 10. The sun had gone and it was cold. We have dozens of pictures of this area so I didn’t take any more; here is one from May 2018, of our old boat Chuffed approaching Blackpole lock from above in lovely weather. We were on our way to Worcester, where we joined the Severn down to visit the Gloucester & Sharpness, coming back to the network via the Avon and Stratford.

Lovely day at Blackpole lock, a bit different from today

At Blackpole lock Jess joined me to walk as far as Tolladine lock, still full of bounce and energy. On the approach to the Offerton flight we thought it would be sensible to get the waterproofs out – just in time as it turned out, because the first drops fell as we shut the stern doors to keep Jess on the boat. Locking would be a lot quicker when I didn’t have to keep tying her up. Once we were up the bottom lock it was raining in earnest, and cold. I jogged between locks when I could, partly to keep warm and partly to lock ahead so we could get through as quickly as possible. The rain and wind made steering very unpleasant for Dave. Fortunately Jess decided she would be better off inside on the bed so at least we didn’t have to dry her off yet again when we stopped. The second-from-top lock had had new gates in the winter, but there's no photo as it was too wet. I was relieved to see the top lock was actually empty – all the rest had been set against us. The rain stopped at last as we ascended the top lock. We pulled in at the Tibberton visitor moorings, short of our intended destination of Oddingley, but we were cold. On went the Eberspacher to warm us up and dry the wet gloves, dog towels etc.

One of the two boats moored ahead of us set off in the rain – it was a hire boat from the newish Trinity fleet at Dunhampstead. It did stop raining mid-afternoon, so they will have had a bit of dry weather to enjoy their holiday. I took Jess out for a walk along the towpath towards Oddingley. We explored a couple of footpaths but everywhere was so wet and muddy that we returned to the towpath which was least firm going although very puddly. Back on the towpath again we arrived at a field ‘guarded’ by two scarecrows.

The field seemed to have a lot of small trees in it, so I checked the labels - mostly fruit trees, with a variety of apples, pears and cherries. Online I discovered that, as I suspected, it is a community orchard, but managed by CRT as part of its 50-mile-long Great Canal Orchard, which will stretch along the Worcester and Birmingham, Staffs and Worcester and the Old Main Line. The plantings around the Arena area in Birmingham are probaby part of it - https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/actnowforcanals-and-look-after-the-blue-and-green-space-on-your-doorstep/protect-canals-for-nature/creating-the-worlds-largest-orchard. The project is not just a community orchard (where anyone can go and pick the fruit), it’s also about creating habitat and wildlife corridors.