After all that soaking rain yesterday, we woke up thi morning to a brilliant blue sky and warm, autumn sunshine. It was a lovely mooring at the bottom of the long garden of the Angel Inn. An old orchard beside us, going a bit to seed. I could easily have spent a couple of happy days moored up here and it must be fabulous in the summer when you could enjoy the garden more and lounge under those apple trees.

We had a good breakfast. Bob made us scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and brown toast. Really good. We then got the boat ready, he went off to the nearby Tescos Extra for a couple of items, and we were away by 10am. The Pershore Lock was literally a couple of minutes down river and we got through that easily. There were two more locks ahead as we headed downriver towards Tewkesbury.

The day was so lovely. The river seemed very still, just calmly rolling past fields of sheep and cows, old orchards, lots of grass. The sort of day when river travel really made sense and the idea of travelling Britain’s waterways in this slow fashion seems very appealing. I’m sure a canal boat hoiday would appeal to many people who are afraid to go on a sea yacht due to rough weather or seasickness. On the river there are no waves, really.

The fishermen were back in more numbers today. Plenty of ducks, heron, swans and Canada Geese as usual. I fed them a few stale buns which were much appreciated. There’s one stretch of the river above Tewkesbury where there must have been thousands of geese, lining the river banks like an invading army waiting to cross.

We stopped for lunch along a bank and used the metal pegs for the first time. You just hammer them into the ground and tie off your ropes to them. We had cold meats and bread rolls. Later on we had toasted malt bread with butter.

Got to Tewkesbury at about 3ish and we stopped at the water tap to take on water. Spoke to the lock keeper and he advised that he would not be there to open the lock out to the Severn until 930. We’d like to be away before that so he suggested we came through tonight and moored just beyond his house. It’s still an easy walk into town and eliminates hanging about in the morning. Tomorrow we have quite a long trip up the Severn, against the flow, to get back to Worcester. The manned lock into the canal to reach our marina closes at 4pm. We have to have the boat back at the marina by 930 on Saturday morning and in effect this means we will get back Friday night so that we can be up and off easily on Saturday. So… good to be ready to go before 9am tomorrow so that we can be sure of clearing the lock at the other end.

Tonight we ate at a restaurant called The Abbott’s Table. A lovely, small fine dining establishment about 10 minutes walk from our mooring. Lovely food, decent wine list, good service, roaring log fire and safety precautions. I had a massive plate of lamb, perfectly cooked. Stuart had ribeye steak, Bob had pork belly roast and Fi also had the lamb. All amazing. Afterwards, Stuart and I shared a local cheese plate, Bob and Fi both went for the lemon meringue roulade with ice cream or cream. The food was that good we debated driving back from Worcester tomorrow night but we decided to give the local restaurants there a go. However, heartily recommend this place in Tewkesbury.

We wandered back to the boat under the moon. So quiet all around us. You would never think we were in the centre of town. My wifi is poor tonight so I will post more pix to the blog tomorrow.