Down to Stourport, and an unscheduled pause

25th & 26th June

Yesterday the engine decided to start without any trouble (lots more about this later), and we got away around eight o'clock. Kidderminster is one of those places that is very handy for the benefits of civilisation, but not particularly welcoming, somehow – it always rather reminds us of Stoke on Trent.

There's a very handy Sainsbury's, right by the towpath, and with trolleys you can bring to the side of the boat. This is, of course, extremely useful, especially when the store cupboards are seriously depleted, as ours were after the trip away from the boat, but it does explain why progress through the water hereabouts is interrupted by serious scraping noises under the boat on a regular basis. An attack of the BCN Clean up type operation would be good along here.

There's a sign at each exit from the car park saying "Thank you for not taking your trolley beyond this point", but no other disincentive to do so. The whole thing demonstrates the truth of the maxim that exhortation to good works is a worthy but not sufficient device as far as good behaviour is concerned.

Some of the guide books actually warn against leaving the boat unattended here – Jim and Liz Lehman in Flimby were just ahead of us at the mooring, and Jim was kind enough to volunteer to watch both boats so that Sheila and I could shop together.

Also at the location is a selection of other out of town type stores, so I was able to nip into Halford's and get some more de-ionised water for battery topping up purposes.

On we went after this burst of retail therapy, past the alternate moorings where there is a Tesco, a Marks and Sparks and various other stores. The canal below Kidder is not quite as nice as that above, which is almost without compare, but once you are clear of the town it's pleasant enough.

Stourport was very busy – I passed up the first slot on the visitor moorings, as it appeared that there were spaces beyond the last bridge before the lock down into the basin. Sheila on the bow suddenly started making stop, stop signals – she'd been able to see that the towpath curves just through the bridge hole, and that it was absolutely full.

The wind promptly got up, and a bit of backing and filling had to take place until we could get back to the mooring we'd first thought of. The new long shaft got some use, as well as the short one we now keep at the stern.

Finally moored, we had lunch then took a stroll round the basin. Progress on the new (or re-excavated) basin is quite slow – there's a load of Barratt homes going up, but only a few men working there, an example of the effect of the housing crash, no doubt.

Stourport itself is a great place, always very clean and tidy, with a lot of small shops in the main street, as well as a decent choice of the usual suspects like Lidl, Tesco and Boots. In particular, there is a great variety of butchers for some reason.

The old Tontine Hotel is now being converted to apartments. The ads say 'from £149,000 upwards', and we had thoughts about enquiring about the potential for buy to let there, but it soon became apparent that only one pokey little one was at that price, the rest being a lot more expensive. It'll be interesting to see if the price comes down at all in the future as the developer gets desperate.

Later in the afternoon a space became free through the bridge, and we nipped through onto it to get away from the car park and recycling centre next to where we had first moored.

Today we leapt lightly out of bed first thing, the cunning plan being to go straight down through the lock onto the service point, pump out and then be out on the river in good time for the first river lock to open at eight.

Only thing was, when I went to start the engine, it whirred sadly for a couple of times, and then the whole thing died quite comprehensively. This is the first time we've had to call out RCR, and I must say at 7.20 the woman at the other end of the phone was bright and cheerful. Having got the details, she got one of the engineers to call back a couple of hours later, and we had someone actually looking at it by 11.30.

In due course he diagnosed a completely knackered battery, as the engine started perfectly well from the leisure bank. One of the heavy earth return cables had chafed where it crossed the engine containment wall, and although that hadn't caused any obvious problems (since that steel is earthed anyway) he thought it possible that that had confused the alternator controller so that the start battery hadn't charged properly.

Whatever, I got a new battery from Lime Kiln's new chandlery in the basin (£56) and fitted it this afternoon. We'll try again tomorrow morning; it's a good job we'd got a couple of days in hand.

It's been a fairly quiet afternoon apart from that as we recover from the trauma of Sanity not doing her stuff. Sheila took advantage of a good internet connection to do an on-line tax return, and I rigged the anchor ready for our river work tomorrow and Saturday. Hopefully, my next blog post will be from the Gloucester and Sharpness.