Rowkin Rovings Blog

Awoke to a very overcast day but we were reassured that it will fine up. It wasn’t going to fine up for old Bozo the Buffoon though as he has been given the almighty boot, and a big one at that, to leave Number 10.

You have to give the British press their dues for coming up with some great headliners. Even though he won with a huge majority back in 2019, it appears to us, talking to people that he does not have too many supporters anymore. Time to go Boris Baby. Interesting to see who will replace him. The Jackals are circling.

It seems every time we are in the UK, monumental things happen. Back in 2016 when we were doing our first long hire canal trip, Brexit happened. More importantly for us, we heard the last chime of Big Ben for four years as they started extensive restoration work on the tower. We hope we will hear him chiming when we are back there in late August.

We rendezvoused with friends Dave and Janet and Toby (pooch) at 11.00am and went off for a coffee to chew the cud. We met Dave and Janet and Toby back in 2019 in Paddington Basin in London when they kindly let us breast up next to them as there were no more moorings available. We caught up with them again on the Kennett and Avon canal on the same trip. They haven’t been out on their boat nb Ella so far this year, but we are hoping that if all goes well that they will be able to head out next week and maybe we can catch up with them on the cut.

Worcester is known for its majestic cathedral, and we were blindly telling the guys that we had not seen it last time we were here. We were here then with good friends Nadine and Peter who spent a week with us. We were very cruel to them as we totally exploited their kind natures by doing the Tardibigge flight of locks which is 36 locks in a row. Quite the achievement for us all but especially for Pete, who is blind.  We are hoping our friends Karen and Miles don’t read this blog as they join us next Friday and we are going to do the exact same thing to them.

When we got to the cathedral, we started having that very uncomfortable déjà vu feeling.

After further wanderings the sensation seemed to be getting stronger.

And even stronger……..Would have been great to have heard the sound come out of this little beauty.

And stronger…….

It was really gnawing at us now.

And then, we passed the Guild Hall and it twigged. Yes we had done the cathedral before. This tells us it is time to start exploring new horizons!! The history of the Worcester Guildhall dates back to around 1225 when it was first built as an assembly place for the merchants of Worcester.  The current building was designed and built around 1772 by the stone mason Thomas White, a student of the world-renowned architect Sir Christopher Wren.

By now it was 3.00pm with blue skys and very warm at 26c. The best way to cool off besides jumping into the river for a swim was to get cruising again, so we set off. We went passed all the usual floating gin palaces which were not getting a lot of use.

It took us a lot of searching to find any info about this rather garrish homestead so that means to us that it is more likely in private ownership now. What we did discover about it was that it use to be the home of the mistress of the Earl of Coventry at one point.

Our travel plans for today was to head off down the river and find the first available mooring of which there are not that many. We were hoping that we would be able to score one at Upton-Upon-Severn which had been recommended to us on quite a few occasions but there are very few places to moor. Luck would have it that John and Helen from nb Never Better allowed us to breast up with them. Gorgeous light from the setting sun.

We went for a wander around the small village with a population of about 3,000 people.

The town has entered the Royal Horticultural Society Heart of England in Bloom campaign since 2003 and has gained a Gold award every year, and won it’s category.

Lots of beautiful old tudor buildings that were only just hanging in there with many belts and braces keeping them together.

As you can see, a gorgeous day with everyone out enjoying the sun. One other thing that blew us away was the amount of pubs in such a small town. This particular pub was the oldest one with a date of 1601 above the door. We went inside for a bit of a look and the floor rolled so much that we thought we were back on the boat. The headroom wasn’t six foot.

Once known for being the most flooded town in England, it is now a well protected town with its own flood defences. We were pretty taken away with the defences that were in place and in the photo, you can see the gap with an electric iron gate that closes during the threat of flood. There were several of these along the rivers edge that protected the village.

During our meanderings, we came across this honesty board. We have seen a few honesty boxes along the canals but usually for eggs or vegetables. This was in the center of town. It gives one a warm fuzzy feeling that this is still possible.

We then met up with Helen and John again and spent the evening in this gorgeous spot chatting before finally heading back to the boat which was a mere 100 feet away. Problem was that we had these huge concrete step blocks we had to negotiate to get back down to the level of the river. One would not one to be drunk doing it.