Flexibility

It's the name of the game when you are ambling about the way we are at the moment. Actually, it was only quite late on that we made yet another change of plan – most of the day went along as expected. Having woken good and early and disposed of a Killer in short order, we were boating just after eight, Sheila locking and myself steering.

We got down Wolverley and Wolverley Court no bother, then Sheila set the washing machine going as I repeated yesterday's walk with the boat. By the time we'd got near Sainsbury's that was all in order and we carried merrily on through Kidderminster. It's an interesting town to boat through, to be fair, and seems to be more boater friendly than it was.

It always take a bit longer than you expect to get along the final length below Falling Sands lock, mainly because the bottom is still too close to the top. There was very little traffic about today, indeed I only met one boat coming the other way in the entire morning.

We got to the Bird in Hand just after eleven and tied there in solitary state. We had some thoughts about eating in the pub tonight as it has good reviews on Trip Advisor for well cooked pub grub.

After lunch, we took a walk into Stourport proper, noting that the Lidl is perfectly accessible from where we'd tied. Indeed, it only took twenty minutes to get to the basin and observe where to tie to get services. There were surprisingly few boats on the visitor moorings above York Street lock and we realised that these are 5 day not 48 hour ones.

I think we had the same idea at much the same time. There didn't seem any point in sitting all alone where we were on a mooring we hadn't used before and which didn't seem to be popular any more when we could easily carry on to well known ones for the weekend.

So that's what we've done. Another 15 minutes boating has brought us on to the good deep moorings with rings. Instead of the Bird in Hand, we may well eat at the Black Star at some point this weekend which also now has good reviews both on Trip Advisor and the BOG Pub Guide.

Tomorrow, we'll work down the lock, get a pump out and diesel at Star Line/Lime Kiln and come back up here. We realised that, it being a Bank Holiday this weekend, the fun fair will be in full cry until late on, so the basin moorings will not be so peaceful or romantic!