On the move again

We left Evesham considerably poorer but with a functioning central heating system. Not necessary for space heating, but very helpful for morning showers. Can't believe what Webasto charge for a piece of polypropylene (perhaps it's some magical variant). The internet suggested I could have picked up a header tank in a car scrapyard for a fiver, but I really wouldn't have known where to start.

Unlike the couple we shared the first lock with today.

Chris and Sharon on NB Krystyna are 6-month boaters like we're aspiring to be, except that they go to Sharon's native Kiwi-land for the other 6 (see the flag!). Chris is a handy guy, and it was useful to pick his brains about solar panels. It was also good just to have a natter, until (to out great surprise in these unpopulated waterways) another boat appeared, wanting to come down the lock, and we had to move on, leaving Chris and Sharon to moor up.

We also left behind this rather extraordinary memorial to Eric Pritchard at the side of the lock. Google knows almost nothing about him, except for this reference where he is a welder, but his friends, who put the memorial in place, called him "Navigator and Craftsman".

The next lock up had its own in memoriam touch. Robert Aickman was a leading light from the early days of the movement to restore the inland waterways for navigation.

And so on to Bidford-on-Avon. It's a charming setting, and many of buildings are in this warm Cotswold stone.

This one was called "The Old Falcon", which seemed a bit odd, unless it was an ex-hostelry. Th church, on the other hand, was made of something rather more grey. It's in a picturesque situation, by the riverside.

From the grounds you can look upstream

and downstream, through the bridge to where Erin Mae is moored.

Parts of the graveyard sit in heavy shadow, but someone has taken care to further brighten the south side of the church with a fine display of bedding.

This evening the sun has come out, Erin Mae is clean on the inside, and I've varnished the rail round the cruiser stern. Content. Tomorrow will bring its own excitement.