Today actually started off fine weatherwise and we took advantage of this to travel 8 miles from Sellars Bridge to Shepherd’s Patch via a diesel and gas stop at Johnston’s in Frampton. I spent most of the rest of the journey doing the ironing!
Before I started the ironing I phoned the lock keeper at Upper Lode and asked him if the river was to close imminently or would we have time to get to Stourport. He said it would probably be closed by the end of the day and an email from CRT this afternoon has confirmed this to be the case. So we are at the mercy of the vaguaries of the British weather as to when we can leave the canal.
We have a bit of leeway in our itinerary so until the deadline we have set ourselves for our departure has passed we’ll just stick to our current plan and wait for the river to open.
We moored at Shepherd’s Patch, in the only available free space, just minutes before it started raining again. They have actually managed to cut the grass here so I wasn’t doing a David Livingstone while I was mooring up!
We went off to the Tudor Arms and found it just as friendly and welcoming (not) as we remembered. The beer was ok though and a lot cheaer than the Pilot Inn where we were yesterday. We left early to get back and watch the England match.
This afternoon during the Northern Ireland game we had a huge hail and thunder storm, this weather seems to be getting worse.
Tomorrow we are going to go down to Sharpness.
