I was woken up by a boat going through the lock at 6.45am but went back
to sleep until gone 8am.
I got an email this morning from Amazon saying “We're sorry your
package is late. We're working with the carrier to get your package back on track, and
we'll let you know when your package is out for delivery. Please come back 2 August if you still don't
have it and we'll help you out.” I wrote
to Amazon and they wrote back almost immediately and told me that they had been
onto the carrier and told them that the parcel needs to be in Evesham tonight
and that they would give me a £5 promo credit!
Wyre Lock is a diamond shaped lock which isn’t a problem with Mary H
being 60 feet – any longer and you would have to go diagonally. Everything was fine until two ANT boats came
up – one a patrol boat and the other a work boat. The patrol boat moored himself very nicely on
the lock waiting so I could get in behind him to pick Richard up. The work boat decided to drift below the
lock, but he was drifting right where I wanted to go to get to the lock
waiting. So, what to do? I managed to get Richard onboard in the lock
only to see the work boat coming into the lock!
He made a real cock-up – threw a rope but not far enough! Finally, he got himself organised and we were
able to get out of the lock.
We watered up at Pershore and then had to do our first Avon lock on our
own! One of the two Archimedes screws
was working – it’s the first time I have actually seen one working.
We caught up with lock friends from yesterday at Nafford Lock. I was really surprised to see that the sunken
boat that we had seen last year is still there – what a shame. The footbridge that goes over Nafford Lock
has been replaced.
The next and last lock was Strensham which we had to do on our own as
our lock buddies never appeared! I
noticed that it must have had an overhaul during the winter as there were new
steps and the upper gate had new wood on it.
We had hoped to stop at The Fleet at Twyning and probably could have
done if the two boats on the pontoon hadn’t left a great space between them.
We continued on into Tewkesbury and again it was busy, but we were able
to breast up with another boat.
It was extremely hot on the boat – the hottest it has been I
think. There was a breeze on the river
in Tewkesbury, but in the boat the thermometer went up to 32.2° this
afternoon!
As we had been going to eat at the Fleet tonight I hadn’t got anything
out of the freezer, so we went for a walk to try and find somewhere. It took us a while, but we finally found the
Berkeley Arms who advertise outside that they are dog friendly. The pub is a strange little place, but we had
a good meal there. The Berkeley Arms is
a Grade II listed building. There have been many improvements to the premises
over at least 800 years with the surviving oldest part being a 12th century
barn. Before the 1850's the Berkeley
Arms was known as the 'Queen's Arms', however the former landlord, Sam Pearse,
was made bankrupt in 1843. He had borrowed £2,000 against the pub, much more
than its value at the time. In the
1980's a sealed up back room was opened, the floor was covered in a deep layer
of old 19th century books. I took this
photo surreptitiously so it isn’t the best!
15.26 miles
4 locks
No comments:
Post a Comment