Home again.

The fish and chips last night was totally amazing and did live up to the billing. We also had some mushroom skewers fried in batter, and they were incredible too. Needless to say we ate too much.

After another trip to the Hollybush Pub, this time to try Red Back, their 7.2% beer, we headed home for an early night. Unfortunately the water pump kept kicking in during the night, a fault we have yet to locate, but a very disrupted sleep pattern ensued.

The weather this morning was absolutely awful, lashing down with rain.
As we have nearly used all the available storage space in the toilet area, we decided to walk to the basin to use the canal and river trust facilities. On our way back we went to Tesco, and realised their toilets are a lot closer to the visitor moorings. It'll be Tesco loos next time we are here. After breakfast, the rain clouds disappeared the sun came out and it was like it was a different day. Typical luck for us to get drenched first thing.

Today we have travelled back to the marina, and eventually back home.
We had agreed to meet up with friends Julian, Sarah and Charlie. It was lovely to see them, and our timing schedule worked perfectly.

It was hard work getting through the two staircase locks at Stourport basin. For some reason they are totally mis-aligned, and my steering is not up to teleporting Magpie II from one position instantaneously to another.

But with a bit of scraping and a lot of luck, we managed to get through the locks.

It was also blowing out howling gale which meant everything was much more difficult, but it's all part of life's great experiences.

Here is a picture of the only bridge we go under as we come down the River Severn.

As we arrived at the entrance to the Droitwich Barge Canal, Julian, Sarah and Charlie were waiting for us.
We pulled in, picked them up, and then gave Julian lessons on how to be a lock keeper. Here are a couple of photos of him in action.

We had a great time travelling 3 or 4 miles with them, but all too soon it was time to say goodbye. We hope they enjoyed it as much as we did, and Charlie is the best six-year-old Captain and helmsman we have ever had on board.

Further on our journey we came to Salwarpe Church, but the unusual feature this time, were two people at the top of the tower, we wondered if they were fitting the Saint George's flag given that it is April. Can you spot them in the picture?

Eventually we made it back to the marina, and said farewell to Magpie II, who deserves a nice rest. We are looking forward to our next voyage.