Yep you guessed it, Stourport!

It rained all night.

With having use of the car Twingo until mid afternoon we decided to return to Droitwich and have another look for places to have a family meal. Thank you to both Debbie (NB Chuffed) and Jennie (NB Tentatrice) for your suggestion of the Gardeners Arms. We had a look at it on line this morning, their menu is vast! Glad I found the plain type version of the menu as the Arthurian version was a touch hard to read. So first we headed there to have a look. The pub has lots of rooms and outdoor areas, most of which were understandably not in use today. If they could relocate it to Bridgnorth it would be an ideal place for Sunday lunch, even if Tom and Jan (Waiouru) hadn’t been impressed with their roasts. A lot of choice, playground for youngsters and most probably a private room for us.

We then headed back across the river and canal to try out our second choice of restaurant from Friday. Bullocks sits at the end of the High Street, the two buildings were built around 1550-1600. It is now a bistro restaurant. Here the staff were very welcoming and not in our faces as much as the place we tried the other night. The menu has variety and the restaurant has a nice feel to it. We decided to have lunch to try out the food and both ended up ordering a fish finger sandwich, well we haven’t had one since Oleanna was being built. I had a gluten free version which meant I got one and a half sandwiches compared to Mick’s  large one. They came with chips and were very nice as they most certainly were not Birds Eye fish fingers!

Decision made, we booked a table. Just have to sort out the Sunday lunch now!

A visit to Waitrose for a few bits and a free newspaper and we headed back to the boat. Our time with our pastel blue friend was coming to an end. Earlier in the day I’d tried to get into a different car, but sadly the door was locked so I had to join Mick if I was going to get home! I was dropped off with the shopping and waved goodbye to Twingo. It’s been handy having a car for a few days, needless to say we won’t be dashing out to buy one!

The river level has gone up slightly today, gaugemaps hadn’t updated for a few hours so we checked the boards. Still about three foot to go. We now have no need to get to Droitwich, not for a month anyway. So thoughts are turning to going the long way round. Should we head to Worcester, hoping that the river level has gone down by the time we arrive? Or should we save the stretch between Worcester and Tewkesbury, (I do like good Tewkesbury!) for our return and head to Lapworth and down the Stratford Canal onto the Avon instead?

We’ll make our minds up in the morning.

Paul (Waterways Routes). Do your maps have suitable cat moorings marked? Tree locations and bunny rabbit holes would be good to know about, as well as areas of friendly cover. If they do I’ll make sure they buy the whole country!

0 locks, 0 miles, 2nd trip to Droitwich, 1 pub with soo many rooms, 2 fish finger butties, 2 pots of chips, 1 pot of tea for 2, 1 booking made, £10 shop for free paper, 0 DK WYS wool for socks (I can sniff a wool shop out at a 100 paces), 1 river still in the RED, 2 boaters making alternative plans, 1 availability check!