Bartimaeus

The levels in the River Severn continued to decline while we were exploring Tewkesbury.  We decided to set off mid-morning, hoping that we might get a slight benefit from the tidal swell.  I went to speak to the lock-keeper who confirmed that was all fine.  As we prepared to cast off a man on the bank asked if he could come in to the lock with us - of course he could.

Once we were both in the lock, the head gates were shut promptly to restore the footpath for pedestrians.  There was then a small amount of administration to do.  We needed to pay for the extra night's mooring, and to quote the number on our Avon licence.  I'd bought it online in Stratford, at the other end of the navigation, but this was the first time it had been queried.  With all that in order, we descended in the lock and out on to the Old Avon.

I took care not to cut the corner at the confluence (it can be shallow there apparently) and settled in to a slow and noisy ride.  We've been happy to drift downstream only a little faster than the current, but going upstream on a wide river can feel frustratingly slow.  We were covering the river bed at just under 4mph, but the engine was working a lot harder than that.

We had a few distant kingfisher sightings, but there wasn't much else happening.  I did most of the driving, but Clare was at the helm when we met a heavily laden barge bringing gravel towards us.  There was plenty of room and the barge produced only a small wake despite its obvious weight.

We were only a short distance from our goal for the day.  There is a visitor mooring at Upton-upon-Severn, the only opportunity to stop before the next lock.  Clare brought us in to the landing stage and I stepped off with the bow rope.  Controlling the upstream end of a boat is essential when mooring in a strong flow.  There was a cleat at the upstream end of the stage, but no corresponding cleat in a suitable place for the stern rope if we used it.

Clare was puzzled when I started indicating that I wanted to go back down to a cleat we'd already passed.  She turned the engine off, which helped communication - a little reverse on electric moved the boat back.  The current would have done that fairly soon too.

We were both ready for some lunch which we had on board.  While we were eating, another laden gravel barge came by.  Not long after, the first barge passed again in the other direction, now empty and much higher in the water.

We went to explore the town.  The first thing we found was The Pepperpot, the tower of the old church which has had its spire replaced by a cupola.  It is also the tourist office and heritage centre, but I was surprised to discover it was closed.  While we were chatting to a man constructing a dog statue out of willow, I realised that the museum on the other side of the road was the place whose hours I had checked - and it was open.

We spent a few hours enjoying the eclectic mix of items and photographs.  We'd seen almost everything when one of the volunteers apologetically told us that she had to go to collect a dog, so they needed to close promptly.

Around the town we saw posters for an amateur dramatic performance.  We had dinner in time to turn up at the door hoping to get tickets.  We were seated next to a pair of women who had come looking for a line-dancing class, but stayed for the performance that was in its slot this week.

The play itself was a farce performed by a fictitious drama society.  It was very funny and well acted with the fictional society members making many mistakes.  There was an awful lot of going in and out of the wrong room. We both enjoyed the performance immensely.

Today we set off upstream again.  After a short distance we saw one of the laden gravel boats sideways across the river.  Before we reached them they had turned downstream and passed us with a friendly wave.

The rule of the river is to keep right, but just before we reached Worcester, I saw some navigation buoys in the water.  These were green and triangular and sitting in the middle of the river.  The rule, going upstream, is "keep the green floaty things on the right" (a variation on a notice we saw in Abingdon).  It didn't feel like the right thing to do on this left-hand corner, but the buoys weren't there by accident.  I reduced speed a little, just in case, but everything worked as it should.

Clare phoned the lock-keeper when we were ten minutes from Diglis Lock.  There are no landing stages below the lock, so having the gates open as we approached was very convenient.  There are two locks, but the lights remove any confusion about which one to go in to.  The green arrow pointing to the left hand lock appeared just before I drove in.  The lock-keeper appeared above and told me to keep to the right hand side of it.

We looped ropes around cables in the lock, but the water came in so smoothly that we would probably have been fine without.  We moored a short distance further on at the visitor moorings opposite the weir.  We were both ready for lunch - the manually operated double locks to get off the river can wait for another day.