Worcester (welcome visitors for the day)

Bank Holiday Monday started quite bright contrary to the forecast.  Karen had some work to do so Buddy and I went out for the morning.  We had a wander round Worcester and walked to an out of town Waitrose to get some goodies for lunch as Mike and Lesley were visiting for the afternoon.

Our mooring just up from Diglis basin…

…and this is looking the other way up the Worcester & Birmingham canal

The rain started just before Mike and Lesley arrived so they got soaked walking from their car.  We stayed on the boat for the afternoon and had a great time catching up.  They have now ordered their new boat so we were all in our element going through the plans and the spec in great detail.   By coincidence they have picked the same shell builder as we used but are having the fit out carried out by a different builder to ours.  They have also nearly finalised their plans for the house they are going to build on their plot of land in Cropredy but that won’t be ready until after the boat.

Our cruising plan now is to get down to Cropredy in early August in time for the annual Fairport Convention festival.  Most of the bands are folk bands which isn’t really our thing but the atmosphere is brilliant, especially in the fringe festivals held at both of the village pubs.  This means carrying on up this canal practically until Birmingham where we will turn right at Kings Norton onto the Stratford canal.  We will follow that down to Lapworth where we will pick up the Grand Union canal.  We will continue on the GU back through Warwick and Leamington to join the Oxford canal at Napton and then it's south until we hit Cropredy.

As Mike and Lesley’s boat won’t be ready by then, we can use their mooring at the bottom of their garden which is right in the middle of the village.  When we last went to the festival we were moored about a mile away from the village as we arrived too late.  We kayaked in each day which was great fun.  

When Mike and Lesley left, they kindly took us to Evesham to pick up the car that we had left there on Friday.  The rain stopped by the evening and it turned out pleasant enough to sit outside and watch the world and boats go by.

It isn’t much fun for a dog in Worcester so I suspect Buddy and I will be cruising northwards this week to get back into the country.

Part of one of the two basins in Worcester