Christmas Soup and a new mixer tap

Thursday 19^th February

The weather doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing does it?  The Met office keeps getting it wrong and whoever the BBC uses seems to be worse.  The hours of rain forecast for today didn’t turn up till the evening, which I was pleased about, and yesterday’s biting wind had dropped too.  But it is very cold still and the windows were streaming with condensation this morning when we got up – the window vac was deployed three times as the boat warmed up.  We needed some milk, so we all walked down to Droitwich.

The canal at the M5 bridge had risen overnight

Dave and Jess went off with the ball and I went into Waitrose, wishing I wasn’t wearing thermals and fleecy-lined trousers!  I cooled down afterwards by strolling along by the Salwarpe in Vines Park with my free cup of Waitrose coffee.

The brine spring outlet is usually well above water level.

The canal shares the Salwarpe’s course between lock 7 (closer to the motorway) and Barge lock (on the edge of Vines Park), and is where the Droitwich Barge and Junction canals meet.  It has been on red boards continuously since 4^th February.  In the summer, the weir alongside Barge lock is usually completely visible and kids play below it.

The pink football was being swirled around below the weir.  Periodically it was sucked below the water, popping up again some distance away from where it disappeared.

Red board at lock 7.  A tiny bit of yellow was beginning to show, but the heavy rain later on would have dealt with that.

I know the Salwarpe is only a tiddler compared with the Trent for example, but I still wouldn’t care to fall in when it is in flood.

I wouldn’t want to be boating on it either

Back at the boat, we warmed up with Christmas Soup from the freezer at home – stock from the bones of turkey and ham, stuffing, various veg – delicious!  Later in the afternoon I took Jess out again, this time up to Hanbury Junction where we turned north along the Worcester and Birmingham for a bit.

Remains of a burnt-out cruiser. I wonder if it was an accident or deliberate - the municipal tip is just over the towpath hedge, they could have waited for the fire to go out and taken the bits there themselves.  Instead it’ll be CRT picking up the bill.

The towpaths were very muddy in places but I wasn’t too worried - the residents’ facilities block at the marina has a dog shower, with a hot water supply!  Jess wasn’t impressed, even though she usually has to put up with a sponge and a bucket of cold water, but I was delighted – a clean(ish) dog and warm hands!  When we got back Dave had replaced the mixer tap in the galley.  It developed a slight leak last year, but yesterday it got worse very quickly – luckily he had already got the new unit.

It rained again this evening.  At least Jess didn’t fall in again.