Time Ashore

The next morning dawned fine and it was only a couple of locks, and a short hop, to the historic city of Worcester. As we passed some visitor moorings, we noticed a tourist sign advising that the city centre was just 5 minutes walk away. Us smaller bears (George, Yorkie, Chelmer, Rocco, Isaiah, Dale, Tiny, Kiwi & 2 puffins) asked Captain Eddie if we might go exploring and he gave permission for a shore based excursion. (Apologies if you hadn't realised we were on the trip, but we missed the earlier team photo when Chelmer delayed us in the pub).

Our first stop was the cathedral. As you will see in our picture, the main building is quite well hidden behind trees.


Talking about hidden, have you spotted Chelmer & Rocco at the top of the noticeboard. We tried to tell them it was easier to read from below, but Chelmer just couldn't resist a climbing opportunity.

As we tend to get up with the sun on boating holidays, we were in the cathedral early enough to have a good look round before the main service started. Chelmer nearly caused us some embarrassment when he gave in to the temptation to climb the tower of a superb model of the cathedral.


This was clearly one of those behind glass models of the 'do not touch' variety so we frantically tried to get Chelmer to come down before anyone saw him and throwed us all out.

We seemed to get away with it, but decided it was time to leave anyway as the service was about to start.

Not far from the cathedral was a statue of one of Worcester's most famous citizens. No it wasn't the inventor of Lea & perrins Worcester sauce, it was a far more cultural figure, Sir Edward Elgar.

We thought it only respectful to have our picture taken with him. We're trying to remember whether our friend Naughty Bear has also done the same.


Chelmer wondered whether he should grow an Elgar style moustache. We all gave him an emphatic 'no' and told him we wouldn't be seen out with him if he did.

At this point Rocco had one of his inspired moments and proposed a visit to a coffee shop for refreshments. As the morning was warm we were able to sit outside and indulge in one of our favourite sports of people watching.


The good thing about this coffee shop was that it was right next to an Oxfam bookshop, so we took it in turns to make forays into the shop to look for some good holiday reading. As it happens this was a shrewd move, given what happened to us a few days later. All will be revealed soon.

Lots of love from the shore visiting party xxx