Time for a Shakedown

Still in the marina

Time for our annual checkout of the boat with a short 'shakedown' cruise, this time to Worcester. We might have thought about doing the ring via Worcester  and the Severn but the Droitwich Canal is still closed just below the marina whilst the silt brought down Body Brook in the winter rains had reduced the navigable depth to a non-navigable level. It is projected that it should be open in time for Easter but it is not clear whether we can go that way when we set off for our annual trip.

When we lived in Cornwall we could really only visit the boat over Christmas and New Year and all too often when we came to the first outing, something would be a problem. However, this year we have been over twice, the second only a couple of weeks ago. So we were hopeful that all would be well - at least the heating is working properly. We will see about the propulsion system tomorrow as we have only had a short trip across the marina since the end of last autumn's cruising.

This time, when we have been telling people about the trip we say that it is more  about testing out the crew! How quickly will we shake off the stiffness gained during the winter?

We came over after lunch and the journey was remarkably free of delays. The works at the Air Balloon roundabout have not yet started in earnest. As far as we can discover, only preparatory work will happen until much later in the year. We did see one small road closure however.

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