The aim today was to get back up to Stourport before rain forecast for lunchtime turned up. We did not quite make it, so the last hour or so we had rain and drizzle. Getting off the Severn and into Stourport basin is tricky. There is a right angled turn from the lock landing into a staircase lock, followed by a short pound with an awkward turn into another staircase lock. As we were coming up through the lower staircase…
We made it back up the Severn as far as Worcester before the rain started today, so we moored up in a swan sanctuary. Yep, that’s right, Worcester seems to be a sanctuary city for the fascists of the waterways. What’s next, political asylum for Canada geese? We saw someone feeding the swans an entire sack of swan kibble. No wonder the river here is infested with them. Don’t the recognize the dangers of swan attack? There’s a reason nobody…
It was raining this morning, so we delayed starting till almost lunchtime. The rain stopped, and we even got some sun this afternoon, but the wind was blowing hard all day. The second lock, at Nafford, has an awkward dog leg approach with weirs on either side. That’s the one where we saw the half submerged narrowboat on the way up. It’s still there. I made it to a lock landing OK, though not the one I was originally aiming…
It was a lovely day today. We spent the morning wandering around Evesham some more, and revisited the Almonry Museum, with its wonderful and random collection. For instance, I am not certain what these shiny things are, because they weren’t labeled. I’m guessing Roman buttons from the other stuff in the case they were in. This was next to them, similarly unlabeled. The spoon I recognize, though it is small. Perhaps a Roman baby spoon? The fact that Roman spoons…
We had a slow day today, with a run to the supermarket and another outdoor play this afternoon. This was As You Like It done by an amateur group from Cropredy. In true coarse acting style Touchstone stole the show by being louder than the other actors. Still, the sun was shining, the barely audible Rosalind was pretty, and the England won the Women’s Cricket World Cup. All in all a good afternoon. I promised a review of the play…
The strangest things turn up in church carvings sometimes. Why is this naked woman riding a deer? That looks more like some pagan fertility rite than a christian symbol. But then the same set of misericords also has a mermaid combing her hair… … dragons… … a camel carved by someone who had never seen a camel… … domestic violence… … and this one. Goodness knows what is going on here. Why are that woman’s legs so small that they…
Here we are in Shakespeare’s Stratford-Upon-Avon, the Shakespeare capital of Warwickshire, and supplier of Shakespeare to the World. Just as Lichfield is proud of Dr Johnson and Walsall is proud of Jerome K Jerome, Stratford is ecstatic over being the home of Shakespeare. Do I need to point out that all three of these writers got the hell out of the Midlands as soon as they could and headed for London where people would appreciate them? Shakespeare at least returned…
The river is getting narrower and there is more current against us. The locks have strangely extravagant follies attached to them, like a lighthouse with no light… … and a bridge with no way to get across it. The Upper Avon Navigation Trust were a strange bunch. A: What does this lock need? How about ground paddles to make using it safer? B: No, let’s put up a lighthouse, so people can find it in the dark. A: But nobody…
I already posted a picture of Paula and the cows at Chadbury Lock on Facebook, but here’s a couple more to start with. Poppy left us this morning at Pershore, and we picked up Nick and Margaret in Evesham. They used to have some whalebones in the park in Evesham, and now they have a statue of a whale and gates shaped like whales. By now you are probably sick and tired of hearing about abbeys, so I’m going to…