Worcester, Droitwich & Kidderminster, UK

We've hired a narrowboat for a week, from Worcester Marina. Setting off by road from Southampton just before midday and after seemingly continuous roadworks, diversions, questionable GPS routing decisions and traffic jams, we rolled in at 4pm, just within the boat handover deadline. Some of the country roads we'd followed to avoid the literally closed actual route were tight single file, and it was all rather hairy, including a memorable near miss with a speeding red BMW coming the other way.

All that done though, plus a quick Asda trip (where we managed to close the self service checkouts briefly by smashing a glass beer bottle right in the thick of them) and we were ready to set off. It was a lovely contrast to the chaos of the M5 motorway to find ourselves cruising along the Worcester and Birmingham Canal, getting the hang of operating the locks, trees dappling us and the boat with sunshine, us eating blackberries from bushes along the towpath, and everyone generally unwinding in the evening sunshine. Kids both took to the tasks of boating immediately, Dylan quickly declaring that he wished the whole trip was on the canals, not just this week, and proving a natural at steering - no mean feat with a 70-foot boat.

I cooked us all a coconut dal with fried tofu for a late dinner, which took the last of my energy after a long day, and which sworn carnivore David gamely ate. In all seriousness we were to eat well aboard for the whole trip, with a veg chilli, mushroom risotto, pesto pasta and bacon, a BBQ cooked on a Cobb with wedges and homemade baked beans, several lunchtime pork pies, plus a chippy lunch on a village bench. But that was all to come; for now we all bedded down for our first night in our new home, moored just a few miles out of Worcester on a truly peaceful stretch of canal.

Next day started wet, but the day soon brightened up as we negotiated many locks, swing bridges, a tunnel, and an unfeasibly low bridge under the very same M5 we'd been so flustered on just a day earlier. We finally arrived in Droitwich, home of the famous Radio 4 long wave transmitter and perhaps more importantly, the Old Cock Inn where we had an OK pub dinner, but in a room of our own which was great, especially with the dog in tow.

Over the next few days our boating took us through countryside that felt like time had forgotten it, fragments of ancient woodland, rivers (including the mighty Severn), rolling hills and more, with just the occasional jolt of the modern world, such as the frankly bizarre permanent funfair at Stourport, or the motorbiking joyriders who flew past us on the towpath one evening. Probably most beautiful was the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, especially around the village of Kinver, with picturesque locks, old canalside pubs, lovely cottages, and imposing rock formations along much of that part of the route. At one lock we saw a guy 'magneteering', pulling debris out of the canal with a hugely powerful magnet (yup, that was a new one on me too).

Running-wise, much of the time Faye and I used the towpaths, such Faye's 600s into 200s interval session, her difficult tempo run (breathing issues), her 12k easy and another 12k easy; or my easy 10k, my half-easy, half-tempo 12k and my easy 8k. We did leave the canals too: I did an easy 8k through the suburbs of Droitwich, and a 10x600m interval session in the lovely Vines Park (also in Droitwich), and Faye had to be more adventurous than that to get her distance in, with a couple of 'man vs boat' runs where she left us in the morning as we set off and joined us later on down the canal, namely her 30km long run south of Stourport and her 22km long run the next day from Droitwich to Tibberton, and other longer routes such as her ad-hoc progressive half marathon around Droitwich.

We had our fair share of minor incidents and comedy moments: Me pushing the boat off the bank and very nearly falling in; having to untangle a discarded fender from the propeller; David dropping part of the barbecue into the canal and somehow rescuing it with a boat hook; the memorable task of using a well-placed canalside pumping station for emptying the onboard toilets after the Morse contingent had successfully filled them to overflowing; literally boiling the engine coolant as we ragged the hire boat up the river at full pelt; the dog trying to walk on the green algae covering the surface of the canal.

We also had genuine successes: The dog learning to enjoy the bustle of activity at the locks (as long as she wasn't on board, when the banging of the boat on the side petrified her); both kids truly loving canal life and mastering the skills with enthusiasm and not a small amount of strength when it came to the lock gates and paddles; Faye finding she loved the peace and particularly the wildlife along the way, watching it from the front of the boat with the dog; and lots of time for family chat, reminiscing, and putting the world to rights as we chugged through the countryside at a pace built for conversation.

It was with some sadness that we returned to Worcester from the direction we'd come, reacquainting ourselves with our first couple of locks once again as they became our last. There was once minor event yet to come: We decided to walk along the canal for a week-end meal at the Diglis House Hotel on the Severn (which was great, and where they gave us our own room with the dog, again). However, we struggled to get on the towpath to do so in the city centre, so in the end we hopped a fence and jumped off a wall to reach it, something Janet and Faye were not impressed with at all, to say the least! But they survived, and all too soon we'd had our final night's sleep safely back in the marina.

Next morning, after David had finally caved and given Skye some of his food (a bit of banana at breakfast, having resisted her pleading eyes and head in his lap at mealtimes all week), we were saying a family goodbye in the car park and, in our case, heading off for adventures anew.

This blog entry is dedicated to Janet's mother, who sadly died this week, aged 94.