A Closed Museum and on to Stourport.

Friday 16th June 2017 in Stourport.
We'd decided to visit the Carpet Museum this morning, which celebrates Kidderminster's history of carpet making. However, we discovered that it only opens four days a week and today is not one of them. Rats!

As we walked back to MM, R posted some railway themed postcards to Lucas in the special Rowland Hill postbox.

We moved MM a quarter of a mile up the canal and moored up outside M&S so that M could get a "few bits". We had considered mooring here overnight right in the centre of town but it is a good thing that we didn't. Apparently, the local petrol-heads use the adjacent car park late at night for burn-outs and doughnuts. Clear evidence showed in the thick black tyre marks on the car park tarmac. The massive former Brinton's carpet factory is now a Debenhams.

Caldwell lock, just south of the town is in a very pretty setting beside the sandstone rock face.

We moored up shortly after, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Severn Valley Railway steam engine cross the bridge over the canal. Our progress was delayed for a while by the presence of a sock wrapped around the propellor. That's the sock, in the foreground.

Just after 11:00am, the service from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth chuffed slowly over the bridge - not a lot faster than us!

The charming name of Falling Sands lock no doubt refers to the sandstone banks and, perhaps, to their propensity to end up falling into the canal. This is a lovely stretch of the waterway.

York Street lock is the final one on the Staffs & Worcs canal; it drops you the last 12ft down into the basin complex at Stourport. It was a hot afternoon and R glanced hopefully at the adjacent "Blossoms" tea room, with happy thoughts of an ice cream or coffee. His hopes were dashed, however, as, by the time we moored up, it had closed for the day. Rats again!

M's geraniums, purchased at RHS Wisley, are doing us proud this year.

Having topped up with water, we moored up in the next space, in the same spot where we had moored up three years ago.

It was a lovely evening as R fed the resident swan family.

Today: 4 miles, 4 locks and 8.0 hours (including power for three days).
Trip: 55 miles, 44 locks and 41.4 hours.