Douglas Diary Monday 11th May 2015

It was a very early start this morning. He woke me up for his walk just as it was getting light, Having groped our way round the field in the twilight and returned to my long kennel, we were delighted to observe that breakfast was ready. We moved my long kennel just a few metres to a nearby watering point and filled up for the next stage of our journey, this took over half an hour and as always was a convenient time for breakfast. It took me two seconds to eat mine. All finished and ship shape etc we started off and entered the lock taking us down onto the river Seven for our journey north. This was going to be a slog, the river Seven due to extensive rainfall  and the storms in the last couple of weeks was quite lively and the best ground speed we could manage was barely 2.5 mph because this was also at least  the speed of the current against us. Not only this we had to skilfully manoeuvre and avoid on coming trees above and below the waterline coming at us at this combined collision speed. This was rather daunting and  so I settled down in my position next to my stalwart bearded one on the poop deck for a long rest. The weather was grey and threatening. The problem with rivers, apart from the flow when it is against, and the storm born detritus is the sparsity of access points to the land. Unlike on the canals where there is always a tow path, dogs and humans can rarely get off onto the land from the river and In fact it was 5 hours during which we travelled 14 miles before I could get off and uncross my legs. The sun came out for the last three hours and it was really a very pleasant journey. We only met two other boats and a couple of working barges all the way to Worcester. We were very pleased to arrive. We plan to stay for a day or two. Love Douglas