The June Rose: Wednesday 2 September 2015

We’ve had a funny day today. Steve’s chicken pox was driving him mad this morning itching so we looked up the local doctors in Alvechurch and decided to pay them a visit – lovely little surgery and very helpful, quick bit of form filling, only a 10 minute wait, discharged with a diagnosis and prescription – eczema - steroids and antibiotics....can you believe it – we can’t!

Pushed off from Alvechurch at 12 noon heading for Worcester. We have 17 miles, 54 locks and three tunnels to negotiate before we get there – well we haven’t been through any locks for a day or three!

Fairly uneventful, our journey began with woodland both sides of the river and whilst this is lovely it does restrict one’s view of the surrounding countryside so it was quite nice when we got through the second of two tunnels and saw rolling countryside once more. Having lived and worked in London all my life it never ceases to amaze me how much uninhabited countryside there still is in the UK. Here we are again surrounded by rolling hills and green countryside – so peaceful.

Through two tunnels, the first, Shortwood Tunnel - 613 yards and the second, Tardebigge Tunnel - 580 yards. Tardebigge Tunnel’s roof was pretty uneven which is unusual compared to all the tunnels we have been through. We went through the first lock which was very deep and pulled over for some lunch. We then decided to carry on for an hour or two as it still wasn’t raining even though more of the wet stuff had been promised.

Nine locks under our belt we decided to call it a night and moored up between two locks – just as well we did for one chap. We had been moored about an hour when Steve said “there is a boat coming up the flight, I will open the lock gates beyond us so he can go straight in”. 20 minutes later I was standing out back on the phone when the guy came up to me to say he had lost his boat! He came out of a lock jumped off to close the lock gates – he is obviously well practised at this – but the wind caught the boat and blew it across the pound into the reeds – his engine was still running, his phone and windlass was still onboard – he was just about to strip off and swim over to rescue his boat when he spotted us so came to ask if we could help. Armed with a windlass and the boat hook we emptied the lock behind which caused the water to pull the boat backwards and Steve managed to get the hook round a back post and pull the boat over. Of course the heavens decided to open in the middle of this operation so we all got soaked again but at least we saved the boat!

I wonder what tomorrow has in store!