Bidford on Avon (I really must move today)


Monday morning mottled cloud reflection on the river




On Thursday, the river was at red all day so we had to stay put but did get a couple of good walks in.  The water meadows in Bidford are very popular with dog walkers so Buddy got lots of exercise running around with different dogs all day.

In the evening Karen caught a train to Edinburgh to have a couple of days with Jo and on Friday I drove down to Reading to see most of my children.  I dropped Buddy off at Lauren’s and then went to pick Jake up from his office in Weybridge and we went for lunch.  Jake’s office is in Brooklands, the old banked race track, at Weybridge which now houses a big technology and retail park as well as the Brooklands museum.  British Aerospace had a factory there for many years and I worked there in the 90s.  I hadn’t been back since so couldn’t believe the changes over 25 years.

Jake had taken half a day so we went back to Reading and took Sophie and Yanos to the museum of rural life which is attached to the university.  These sort of museums always fascinate me and this particular one has an amazing collection of farm carts from different counties around England.  I find it incredible that these artefacts have survived.

Later on Polly, Isaac and Steve joined us all at lauren and Lewis's for dinner and we had a great evening of games (and drinking), staying up to the early hours as we tend to when we all get together.

There weren’t any decent pictures of the weekend save for one with Steve, Sophie and Lauren when we walked into Reading on Saturday to get Lauren kitted up with walking boots.  Karen, Steve, Lauren and I (and Buddy of course) are having a weekend in Snowdonia in three weeks as part of our training for our next three peaks challenge in 2018.

With Steve, Sophie and Lauren

In the afternoon, I drove to Leamington to pick Karen up from her train and we spent the rest of the day pottering around the boat and Bidford.

We were going to move the boat four miles to Haverington on Sunday – this was the next spot where there are moorings.  I had a final check on the mooring and parking situation via Google Earth and OS maps and suddenly realised that the only way to get back to the car (without walking along the Stratford-Evesham main road) was to cross the river via a ford.  I had thought the crossing was a bridge!  It may have been doable a week or so ago but the levels are still up so it wouldn’t have been possible.  We stayed put so I could then move the boat on Monday and Karen could just come home to the new spot after work.

We had a pleasant walk in the afternoon taking in some Worcestershire villages and, as we often do, found a crop that we didn’t recognise.  Well, we recognised it but couldn’t remember what it was.  It was very sweet smelling like perfume.

Can’t remember what this plantis
 


We had another river access issue on our way back on Sunday afternoon.  We had walked to Cleeve Prior and then on down to the river intending to follow a path back to Bidford along the river bank.  We got part way along the river and were then met with a sign that the path had been disbanded via some sort of public order.  So we had to retrace our steps but were entertained by a young dunnock for a while.


Young Dunnock

Here’s hoping that the next blog entry is from somewhere different as we have now been at Bidford on Avon for a week.




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