Into Worcester

Thursday 9^th October; Perdiswell Park to Diglis Basin and the Commandery

It was jolly chilly this morning and I should have put my thermals on.  Dave wanted to do a few things on the boat so I took Jess for a very brisk 40 minutes in the park to try and warm up.  The place was heaving with dog walkers, mostly very cheerful and friendly.  We met a huge pack of people and hounds, which Jess studiously avoided, keeping a tight bite on her ball.

The tail end (ho ho) of about 30 walkers and their dogs

The golfers were out in force too.  I have friends who enjoy this strange sport, don’t understand the attraction myself.

An odd pastime

I had finally warmed up a bit by the time we got back to the boat, to find Dave already in a T-shirt wielding the paint restorer.

Working hard

It was after 10.30 before we got going, under brighter skies, although it was a while before I started to remove layers.  Some of the paddle gear was quite stiff, which helped with the warming process.

Bilford bottom lock

Below the Bilford pair and the two Gregory’s Mill locks the dreaded floating pennywort rears its ugly multi-head.  The weed boat had clearly been through since we came off the river in September, when huge rafts of pennywort were drifting across the canal, but banks of it were building up again where the weed boat couldn’t quite get in.

The heron seems to find it useful

At Blockhouse lock, our last for the morning, there were a few loose bits of pennywort still floating about, so I did my duty and hooked them out.

Every little hinders – who knows how big these bits would have grown if I hadn’t pulled them out?

The Commandery moorings were free, so we stopped for lunch as it was already 12.30.  The canal had been very quiet – apart from a flurry of boats yesterday evening (new hirers going out) there had been no-one on the move.  Even so, we thought we’d better get winded and moored again sooner rather than later, so set off down Sidbury lock to Diglis Basin straight afterwards.  Not a moment too soon!

Just in time to wind before these two boats had come up off the river

One of the two, an ABC hire boat from Worcester, moored behind us at Commandery.  They had hoped to get to Stratford along the Avon from Tewkesbury, but it all turned out to take a lot longer than they had expected so they didn’t.  They had had a lovely time, which is what matters, of course.

I walked back down to Diglis Basin to dispose of the rubbish and have a look at the river, which was flowing serenely past the end of the canal.  The lockie on duty said it had been a very quiet day, just 3 or 4 boats in all.  We bought some cake from the Commandery tea-room to eat later, as they close at 4, and did little else after that (apart from eat cake.  And then tea, and watch football).  We lit the fire for the first time this autumn.

3½ miles, 7 locks.