gatekrash

Seems they've had a failed sluice on Bevere lock. We came through yesterday afternoon, and the notice came out about 2 hours later so we were lucky! Stoppage says it's a significant failure and they need to mobilise plant to undertake the repair. Going to be a lot of upset very large plastic cruiser owners, we went past several 50/60 footers who were heading down for the Upton festival, the lockie said he'd been busy all morning with downstream boats heading that way. At least we would have had the option of reversing our route and going back up the W&B, but they're stuck ..

Whereas we've been out from Droitwich down to Worcester, couple of days at Diglis, then back up the river and seen less than a handful of boats. Normally a Friday sat in Worcester we'd see quite a few ABC boats out of lowesmoor...we saw 2. It's definitely quiet at the moment here.

Today 2024. St Richards canal festival, Droitwich

Indeed there was, plenty. We were only going to stop for a look around, but since they've got decent beer from the Old Swan on, and the weather is absolutely lovely for a change we've decided there's no rush to get back to the marina so we're here for the night 👍

We'll be coming up through the Droitwich festival from the Severn direction on Saturday afternoon, if I can find a spot to stop for a beer I will, but suspect we'll be walking back down from the marina too !

I think the people who were running bridge 5 are the same couple who run bridge 35 down at Hanbury. The website setup was identical. There's been a lot of speculation down here about whether they were closing the Hanbury operation to move to Cheshire as they were rarely at the shop and they kept closing for meetings etc. Looks like it was the other way around and they were struggling to keep the Cheshire shop going. I hope they do well at bridge 35, as they seem to be a nice young couple trying to make a go off what must be quite a hard living. We try and sort them where we can.

You can also use the rugby club across the road, they're happy for berthers to use the bar. Their breakfasts are cheap! Plus they run an annual music festival in August and give people in the marina free entry. There's always bridge 35 at the top of Hanbury for diesel, or if you're coming the other way then Crafted also does diesel. Sometimes on a Saturday morning / Sunday afternoon Hanbury locks can have a bit of a queue with boats off the marina, we usually plan to leave Friday evening if we're off just for a weekend trip.

We were in Brum over the same period, and did a quick run around the Black Country ring over a few days before we went back down to Droitwich. Brum was quiet at both ends of the period we were out. Quiet at every mooring we stopped at, space on the VMs at all the 'honey spot ' locations. As others have said, Easter was early this year, the weather was a bit pants. Busiest day was coming down Tardebigge when all the ABC boats from Worcester were on the way up, but I reckon that only amounted to about 10-12 boats over 2 days. Most of the Black Prince boats were still in at Stoke Prior. I chatted to the staff whilst we were hovering waiting for the lock and they said they had very few boats out or booked so far this year.

Seconded. We bought ours direct from the workshop as they're just up the road, so we could go and see them first and they'll do custom flues for all sorts of stuff if you need.

Yeah, we made the pound below Tardebigge top lock by about 4 on Sunday, were settled in with the fire lit about half an hour before the torrential rain started, and had a nice dry and almost sunny run back to the marina on Monday.

Well that was interesting. Coming through by the holiday Inn or premier Inn or whatever it is, the wind blows you 90 degrees across the canal towards the hotel, then just as you correct it an almighty bounce back off the building sends you straight across towards the moored boats. Fortunately the guy off the fudge boat warned us as we passed so we were ready for it. And getting around salvage turn into the white horses was tricky too.

We came across her last year. She gave me a load of abuse for waiting above the next to bottom lock for a boat to come through, I was following the instruction that was stapled to the lock beam that said set 1 lock ahead or wait to avoid having to pass in the pound with a big shelf, this was the same advice the CRT bod had given us the last time. She started shouting that it was a load of rubbish and that they didn't know anything ! Clearly she hasn't mellowed!! We saw you had managed to get tucked away in the corner yesterday, looked like a sheltered spot. We're moving down towards Alvechurch today, assuming we can get the boat off the bank in the gale...

You did well to get down there already. Especially since you've had to go past the Blue Bell and the Boot Inn on the way 👍

Nah. It was me, just before you went past the giraffe. 👍

Severn back on reds again today, so Brum was definitely the right choice !