Bye to Stratford and off to Evesham
Oh we are lucky folk, we left for Evesham on Monday 19th April in Glorious
Sunshine, after spending another lovely weekend in Stratford we were going to leave on the Saturday but as we had Joey and Jayne visiting we stayed, and had a lovely day just messing about on the river, unfortunately Joey got himself a parking ticket, as when they came into the car park, they could see how close we were and we went over to meet them and you know how it is people just forget,(especially when you are his age !!) so when they left at six they were lumbered with a ticket for £50.00, which turned out not to be so bad, as if they pay it in 14 days they get half price=£25.00 and if they had actually paid for Parking it would have been =£12.00 so all in all it was really only a fine of £12.00 which aint so bad, after Joe and Jayne left we were tidying up and getting ready to watch BGT ! we had a knock on the door, it was our neighbours from our Market Harborough winter moorings Joe and John from nb.Acen so we had a cup of coffee and a catch up outside in the warmth of the beautiful evening sunshine, Then we thought we might leave Sunday but we decided to have a lie in take it easy and stayed.
Monday we were only going to go half of the way to Evesham which would have taken us to Bidford, but as the weather was just so warm and glorious we decided to carry on, we had forgotten, or maybe not taken in last time we came this way just how absolutely tranquil and beautiful this river was the last time, It turned out really well as the next couple of days although sunny had a really cold wind so we were glad we had done it all on Monday. It was lovely to get back to Evesham the home of our birth (well the boats birth) and see all of the lads again who are always so helpful, Richard has cleaned and painted the engine room and I washed the roof, there is a lot of touching up to do so we hope to get it all done, also I have decided after seeing the new nb Badgers Drift and the lovely Wayne and Paul showing us onboard, I have decide to have glass doors fitted to our side opening doors so that in the winter we can have the sun shining through but keep out the cold, so that means we will be here for over a week as we have to wait for the new doors to be delivered and fitted. We have spent this week working on the boat and visiting the town which is in walking distance, On Tuesday we took Rio to the vet as he was wincing when he scratched inside his ear, he has a little scratch inside it so £51.00 later he is fixed with antibiotics and some nystan liquid drops. Richard took his bike in to the bike shop to get it fixed on Wednesday as he was all punctured up from our last jaunt on the canals, he had fixed my punctures, but we couldn’t get his inner tubes, so the shop sorted him out and we are both up and running again. (Wednesday Afternoon I had a call from an old friend who has discovered us on facebook, Pauline Morrison(as was from Tywyn) came to visit us at the Marina as she lives not far away from Evesham and had read that we were here, she came with her husband Jeremy and we had a lovely time chatting over tea and biscuits, lovely to see her again after gosh, it must be twenty odd years since I last saw her, “wasn’t so pleased with the photo’s she put on facebook tho( well she wasn’t to know that I only allow pictures on there that have been thoroughly vetted and where some of my chins have been lifted up, and the wrinkles not showing too much !!!) “ well don’t you all”?
The weather has been terrific and we have been on some super walks, it is blossom time here and with all of the fruit orchards that seem to be everywhere we walk it is just gorgeous, Saturday afternoon we went to the Tourist Info centre to get some more info on walks or bike rides, so the very helpful lady suggested we went on a blossom trail, I think we went the wrong way as we ended up cycling down the A46 heading for Oxford I think !! so we got off and went to a lovely pub for a cool glass of cider and to reassess our route, but decided to go to Morrison’s and back home as it was too hot. Sunday started a little gloomy but the sun kept appearing and it was still warm so whilst the gloom was on I thought I would stay in bed and write this blog and put up some photo’s, so I started and got half way through when Richard came through to me saying quick get up someone wants to look at the boat, well I love showing the boat off but I was relaxing, anyway they went off round the marina for half an hour whilst I got up, showered made the bed and made everything look ship shape for a lovely lady who thought the open day was at Ambers Marina here, but it was in their Sawley branch which is on the river Soar in Nottingham, Well she came on board and absolutely loved the boat as much as we did so it was worth getting up, just to be reminded of how lucky we are to have such a lovely boat. We decided to go get ourselves a Sunday lunch somewhere, so took off on our bikes, no sooner had we got on the road than it started to shower a little so we went in to the first pub we came across, we went in to the Crown hotel that was along the Riverside and went round the back to park our bikes, we thought that the garden looked a little untended but thought maybe it would be sorted for the summer season, went in through the back door which looked a little shabby and in through the dining room, where there were quite a few people having a Sunday roast, Richard said he was going to order, but I always like to ask the diners how lunch is, so I said to a table of diners how was the meal and the bloke that came over to pay the bill, must have seen the worried look on my face and he said the Lunch tastes a whole lot better than the decor gives it credit for!! So that was it, “moral of the tale, don’t judge a book by its cover”, unfortunately I do, especially when it comes to dining, but having said that a lick of paint certainly wouldn’t go a miss, it seems a shame that someone could lose business because of their appearance in these credit crunch times, cos if there were no diners in there I certainly would not have gone in. But the meal was all home cooked produce and real rice pudding for pud at a very reasonable price. After lunch we decided to go on another bike ride not sure where we were heading, but again ended up on the busy Worcester road, we really must invest in an O S map of the areas, we ended up going about 73 miles, but it was lovely, as we ended up going through some of the wonderful blossom trail that we were looking for the previous day, so by the time we had dragged our bikes up a public footpath through the woods and over the golf course,to get off the busy Worcester Road (well that’s where the signs for the Wychavon Way took us) well it can only do us the world of good, and if I stopped eating lard and chocolate, it would get me in to some kind of shape.
Well that’s enough for now, I must get up I have stayed in bed to finish this today and it’s 10.30 so I must get up and show willing, Richard is still titivating the engine room, mind you it does look lovely and clean now.
Bye for now
Lots of Love
Chrissie & Richard & Rio x x
Ps. Our most Avid reader, my cousin Pauline (she’s Welsh you know) had a great big birthday to celebrate this week, yes she hit the big..... “Ooh I don’t think I’m aloud to say” anyway she is almost as old as me and I’m no spring chick !! So Happy Birthday Pauline, and maybe we will catch up for a drink someday soon x x |
