Too much water now!

Saturday 11^th October; Perdiswell Park to Dunhampstead

It was another quiet, grey and cloudy day.  Dave took Jess for a decent walk in the park while I went up to get bread and the paper in the retail park.  I noticed when we drove through Droitwich on our way to the marina, when we came through Bilford top lock and also here, that the lamp-posts on the main roads are all adorned with St George’s flags.

I’m not passing any comment here on the motivation of the people putting these flags up.  But I was always taught that flags are only flown at half-mast to show respect for someone who has died.  I think these rows of half-mast flags look a bit daft and slightly creepy.

We set off mid-morning, knowing that the locks would not be in our favour, as two boats had already passed this morning.  The top paddles on Blackpole and Tolladine locks were very stiff, no change there.  It’s less than a mile then to the bottom of the Offerton flight.  I turned the bottom lock, left Dave to close up at the top and walked the couple of hundred yards to the next lock.

A splash of autumn colour in the gloom at bridge 23

As we were working up the second lock (no 5) I could see activity at the next (no 4), so walked up to ensure they left the bottom gates open for us.  A hire boat was moored on the lock landing above it and all four crew were straining every sinew to open the top gate against the water flooding over it.  The levels just would not equalise.  There was so much water coming down that one of the crew had already been back to the lock above (no 3) to ask – beg! - the crew not to let any more water down until their hire boat had got in, descended, and left lock 4.  Two of the four were owners - their own boat had been trapped above Knowle locks because of the low water levels, scuppering their summer cruising plans with friends.  As they are booked in for a repaint at the end of the month they weren’t going to risk getting stuck below the locks so they had hired instead.  They got down eventually, then it was our turn.

The crew above had opened their paddles by now

Thankfully the excess water was soon spent and we had no further trouble.  There was another boat on its way down too which had added to the problem.  By the time we reached the top of the flight it was lunchtime, so we went on to the Tibberton moorings for a break.  The Bridge pub, canalside at Tibberton, had re-opened in the summer and we toyed with the idea of staying for a meal tonight though we really wanted to be a little further on.  I wandered up to have a look at the menu but found the pub closed and dark, the new management clearly not having been able to make a go of it.  We carried on.  We could have squeezed in to moor at Oddingley, but went on a little further to Dunhampstead where we knew there was a good edge.

Scots Pines at Oddingley

Dave needed a good edge so he could start repairing the damage sustained when that lout chucked a bottle at us on the last trip.

A reminder of the damage.  Vactan has been protecting it since then

He used filler on the bigger areas but will see if paint on its own will deal with the small chips of the splatter pattern.  He also put a strip of masking tape along the very bottom of the tumblehome so he could paint a straight black line along the gunwale edge – when we bought the boat the edge of the cream paint on the side was rather ragged and he was keen to neaten it up at last.

4½ miles, 8 locks