Tewkesbury (Mon 1st July)








Wow it’s July, it's been just over three weeks since we set off, its only writing the blog that makes me remember what day it is.  We are going into Tewkesbury today but there’s no hurry as we have all day.  Its bright and a little breezy, Derek was warm but he had been walking dogs and getting the paper and its up quite a steep slope up into town.  At 9:20 a Tug came through the lock, it was called Billy, its funny that tugs seem to have a masculine name and lots of NBs have feminine ones, modern ones that is.  I think it could because when they were working boats like tugs the names were given by the skippers who of course ruled the roost.  The modern NBs are usually named to persuade Mrs. NB that its a good idea to own one, or is that just me. ????   Had a lovely day, we walked into town, Derek having had a talk with the Lockie telling tales of the 2007 flood.  A NB is above where we are moored, on dry land and has been since the floods last November, in 2007 it was a lot higher and lasted for 17 days, phew that’s a lot of water.  The Lockie said they could only get out of their bungalow by boat and they had to move lots of moored boats to safety till the waters subsided. Tewkesbury is a lovely place, lots of quaint buildings, charity shops (just for me) antique shops and trendy ones too.  We had a coffee and a cake (with Derek so cake is compulsory) and found lots of bits and pieces in various shops so I was very happy.  Back to the boat, we had lunch and I finished painting the roses on the bottom of the back door panels, whilst Derek had a nap.  I went back into town to look at an antique shop I had missed and left Derek to do the hovering and run the generator for a while.  I had lovely chat to the man in the antique shop, well it was three floors of a mill like building, called the Coach House.  There is a festival of the Battle at Tewkesbury in July and he was painting a life size figure of a knight and I told him I had been painting roses on the boat, he showed me the figure and it was really life like and very impressive.  He asked about the boat and the journey we had been on and was very impressed with it all.  I went to the tourist information centre and got a 50p pamphlet telling you all about the Battle of 1471 and the festival they have to remember it, it sounds great, battle re-enactments, a medieval market, jesters, jugglers, dragons, the works and not a drop of blood spilt, that must be a bonus.  Unfortunately it’s on 13th and 14th of July so we will be elsewhere, we do intend to bring the kids back here after we collect them, so they can see how lovely it is.  When I got back to the boat for teatime, the couple from the boat now moored behind us, NB Lamprey came and had a long chat with us about their boat and how they came to boating 17 years ago and their involvement with the Boating Festivals along the canals.  They are going to the Festival at Stratford on Avon in a week or so, needless to say we are quite pleased we will not be there for that as it’s certainly not our scene.  Anyway each to his own.

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