Severn swells with rain.

Well, after getting totally soaked yesterday, we took it easy today The weather has been quite rainy and blustery the past few days, and more important for the Severn, there has been a lot of rain in north Wales The lock keeper at Worcester was concerned about the river rising so we got out of town There are two big double wide (almost triple wide) locks close together to get back on the Severn at Worcester When we got there the pound between the two was empty (someone had left a paddle open) and the lock keeper was running water through the first into the pound below While we were finally working through, it rained, then rained harder, then sleeted and finally hailed Being the ultimate optimist, I hadn’t put all my rain gear on and was thoroughly wet by the time we got onto the river No problem, a quick change of clothes and shoes and on with the full rain suit That guaranteed that there was no more rain all the way to Stourport Anyway, we moored at the pontoon on the river, just short of the narrow lock entrance into the basin.
This morning (Monday) we started up the two double staircase locks into the basin There is also a dry dock between the two locks What we didn’t know was that Monday morning is turnover day for the dry dock This held us up for a while and of course it started to rain again So after two hours to negotiate two locks, we moored in the basin near the facilities block and stayed there It gave us time to clean out loads of stuff that had been accumulating in lockers, drawers, cabinets, you name it Living on a boat is no different than living on land Stuff expands to fill every available space
Tomorrow we’ll be off to Kidderminster, which is only a few hours up the canal There is a nice chandlery here but they were closed today and don’t open until 1000 tomorrow morning, so it will be a late start for us and we’ll fill with water before we go too.
When we were in the marina at Worcester, I changed the engine and transmission oil, oil filter, fuel filter and air filter It was due and it was good to do it there because they had a place to dump the old oil Getting rid of old oil is a real problem and I don’t feel comfortable just leaving it somewhere There have been instances of local yobs finding it and dumping it in the canal just for fun.

The weed hatch is a great invention. There is always rubbish in the water in the canals and I’ve been down into the weed hatch once or twice in the last month Around the BCN, it could happen more like once an hour One good trick is to take the boat out of gear when going through bridge holes in a place like that. There is more stuff in the water around bridges and since the waterway narrows under the bridge, the flow into the prop is more concentrated. Again, a couple quick thrusts in reverse sometimes kicks the offending carrier bag, weed, jacket, duvet, whatever, off the prop If that doesn’t work it’s time for a dive into the hatch We have a long heavy pond glove to make it a little more enjoyable. That’s really about all for now. Cheers, John and Ann http://www.holidayuk.co.uk/canals/routes/stourport/index.htm