Tewkwsbury

I suppose it had to happen. At some point the conversation amongst boaters always comes round to toilets. We have a Vacuflush toilet with a very large holding tank underneath the bed and a Leesan charcoal filter in the tank vent line. This is supposed to stop all smells coming from the tank to the outside but we have never found it to be 100% reliable. We’ve tried all the proprietary tank additives, including Odorloss, but these are expensive and we’ve never found them to be particularly effective. A while ago I came across an article on the internet that recommended using bakers yeast as a tank additive. I was quite sceptical but as it’s only 64p per tin I thought we’d give it a try. 9 months on and we’re still using it. I add 2 teaspoons of sugar to ½ pint of luke warm water and stir in 30g yeast.  I leave it for 10 minutes to activate and froth up and then simply pour it down the loo.

I forgot, this was after 15 mins!

I do this every time the tank is emptied and then repeat every 5 days or once you notice the ‘niff‘. The smell hasn’t totally gone, but its much less obnoxious than it used to be, even in the very hot weather we’ve been having, and we normally go 4 weeks between pump outs.

We’ve had a very pleasant day today exploring Tewkesbury. We haven’t been here before and it’s a lovely town/city. There are some beautiful timber framed houses and shops and the market was pretty good too. Roger spent ages browsing the tool stalls. You know the ones, they sell all manner of weird and wonderful items, most of which I have no idea what they are.

I went to the fish van and bought a flat fish for tea that I’ve never seen before.

It’s a ‘Witch’ and comes from Cornwall. It’s like a large Dab and we’re very fond of them, so I’m really looking forward to it. We eat a lot of fish and since Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight Campaign there's so much more choice available in the shops. It’s no longer just cod or salmon.

Later on this afternoon we took Chico out for a long walk around the Severn Ham. This is the meadow alongside the River Severn which floods most winters. You can see a photo of it flooded HERE

Abbey Mill Weir

tonight's mooring

We moved the boat this morning as soon as a better mooring became available. It's £3 a night which is the first time we've ever paid, but it was worth it. We'll go down the lock onto the River Severn tomorrow.

Tewkesbury

We moored at Pershore last night and continued on down the river after lunch. Yesterday had been quite overcast and extremely windy but today was lovely, bright and sunny but still quite breezy.

This section of the river is absolutely beautiful and teaming with wildlife.

We saw lots of herons, swans, mallards and coots and then came across this solitary Egret. I haven’t seen one of these before, it’s like a small white heron.

A bit further on we came across a herd of deer, not sure what type so if anyone can enlighten me I’d be very interested. We cut the engine and drifted past and they watched us watching them for quite a while. There were several youngsters and the total herd must have numbered around 15-20, stunning!

I was very pleased to see this modification to the lock beam at Strensham Lock. The bit of padding made it so much easier to open. Maybe BW could adopt this when refurbishing locks?

After passing beneath the M5 motorway we got to Tewkesbury at about 6pm, a bit late maybe as all the moorings were taken.

M5 rush hour

In an effort to find a suitable mooring we cruised down to the end of the navigation and turned round in front of the weir. It’s lovely down there with some really beautiful cottages, but no public moorings.

end of navigation

When we got back to the main moorings a hire boat very kindly offered to let us breast up with them. We’ll move to a better mooring tomorrow as we intend staying another night to give us plenty of time to explore Tewkesbury.