The “nothing” being the forecast rain. Faced with a day of light rain today followed by a day of heavy stuff on Friday, we decided to brave the elements and try and get to Stratford and batten down the hatches for the impending storm. We untied at seven o’clock and made our way past all of the moored boats on our way to Evesham lock; the bottom gates were open for us but we made a service stop first. This was to be the only lock of the day in our favour although we did manage to share many with other boats. The rain never came except for a five minute period of spots blowing in the wind as we made our way upstream. As we rose in the penultimate lock we could see a small grp hire cruiser bobbing around outside the top gates. By the time we were ready to exit the lock, the wine swigging crew of three females had tied their craft in such a way that it was partially blocking our exit. Ordinarily, this would not have been a problem but on exiting the lock there is a sharp left hand turn requiring space for the stern to swing into. They ignored requests to move, declaring that there was plenty of room. The skipper of the other narrowboat even got off his boat to try and get them to turn through ninety degrees, explaining that there would be little contest in a collision between them and a 22 ton steel boat. They drove across our paths to the opposite lock landing and as we passed were still trying to justify themselves and their actions. Sue tried to tell them that it was for their own safety but only got an “Eff off” in response – very ladylike! We didn’t see them again, perhaps they went to explore the weir.

Our lock buddies were also intent on getting a riverside mooring to sit out the storm and happily enough we were both successful in securing the last two available spaces, quite an achievement given that it was by that time almost four o’clock. As we saw in Evesham yesterday, the evening river traffic is given over to the local rowing club.

As for the weather, the forecasters are now puzzling over how they could have been so wrong, let’s see what tomorrow really brings – perhaps they’ve got that one wrong too (fingers crossed!).

Tonight’s view from Caxton