Heading home

I had another couple of nights in Birmingham, visiting both the RSBA and Ikon galleries. Chris and Christine caught me up and we had a good night at the Fiddle and Bone open mic, where Chris played a few numbers. Once again all the musicians were very good. I met up with Luke's friend, Jane, the next day and we exchanged tips and stories about our forthcoming journeys as we were going in opposite directions. I moved down to moor at Bournville and spent a couple of hours looking around the village. I liked it. Why can we not build such user friendly villages anymore? I visited Selly Oak Manor which contains quite a lot of unusual utensils and tools as well as insight into Tudor life.

I took a couple of days to cruise the Stratford canal down to Kingswood Junction. It is a pretty canal and the only hardship for me was the two drawbridges where it is difficult for a singlehander to get to the "workings". The first one was possible to do by positioning Olivia across the canal, her bow pointing to the working side, me getting off the bow with the bow rope, opening the bridge and then slowly pulling her through using successive ropes until I got her completely through and tied the stern rope while lowering the bridge, hopping on the stern and driving off. As is usual, as soon as I had finished a boat with crew turned up!! The second bridge was less easy as a moored boat is close by. I did start to follow the same procedure but then one of the local boaters offered to help so I could drive through rather than pull her through. I moored at the top of the Lapworth flight of locks and started down the next morning.

I did the first four on my own and then I met up with a volunteer lock keeper who assisted with the next nine locks, I moored here near the pub (:-)) and cafe, finishing off the next six locks next day.

From my mooring at the junction I walked down to Lowsonford lock to see the Anthony Gormley statue and the sweet barrel roofed cottage.

The next morning, Monday, I was woken by a high pitched whine. It was like a strimmer on speed. I looked at of the window to see a camera drone "parked" next to my boat. Being nosy I had to find out what was going on. The guys operating it told me they were filming for Great Canal Journeys as Tim and Pru were around and are doing the Stratford canal for the next series. It was interesting to see how they go about the filming for the series and, although I didn't get to see the Wests, I did enjoy seeing the crew organising and filming segments for the show. I then discovered that the locks were closed due to a broken collar on one of the locks. This was significant in that Christine was now moored at the top of the locks and was due to come down to moor near me and from there to go for a meal at the pub. I walked up to see her and we found that a new part was being fabricated and should be fitted within the next three or four hours so we kicked our heels for a while, then went down to lock 10 to watch the guys fitting the part. Chris arrived from London and we helped Christine down the locks. We had a very nice meal at The Boot pub with Gary and Sarah from Lyons boatyard who are good friends of Chris and Christine.

The plan for Tuesday was to press on to Hatton locks where we were meeting Luke. We had gone down about 5 locks when Luke cycled up from Warwick. With Chris going ahead and preparing the locks and Luke shutting the gates behind us, we were able to get down the locks in good time. It is not a flight that I would enjoy doing alone. We moored at the Cape of Good Hope pub and had a nice late lunch. Most had pie and a pint for £10 but I had a chicken breast burger and half a pint. It was tasty and greatly appreciated. Chris went to the station to get his train home and Luke and I went into Warwick to do a quick round of charity shops and get some supplies.

When we started off through Leamington to Long Itchington, Luke took the helm. I thought he was going a bit fast and then discovered that he wanted to make the car boot sale at Long Itch that afternoon. We moored outside the Two Boats pub (think there is a bit of a theme going on here) and Luke went off booting. He found a few albums that he thought were worth buying and together with those I had picked up for him at Tipton he was laden with 40 albums when he biked back to Warwick for his train home. Christine and I went for fish and chips at the pub.

Thursday was to be our last day together as I was booked into Calcutt for a service and Christine had arranged to meet friends in Braunston. We had ten more locks to do and as we were being followed by a working boat and a hire boat we got plenty of help from their crews. At Calcutt I helped Christine through the last three locks, waved goodbye for now and took Olivia into the boatyard for "work". I knew I needed to do some remedial work on the gas locker but it needs welding so think this will be an expensive month.

A Slumberland Sprung Mattress

The long and the short of it all was that it took SIX hours to cut away all of the rubbish on my prop. There was a scary moment when we thought a hand was coming up through the water. It was a filled glove!!

In the meantime, Christine's boat had been extricated from the pools but not until she had emptied her water tank and cleared out the front locker to shift the weight from the bow of the boat. See what I mean, you need to be intrepid and NOT to go there without at least one support boat. Three of the boats ended up mooring at Tipton instead of the original destination of Bentley Bridge. Stuart and Marie did go to the latter but they didn't arrive until after 9pm. We all had supper together and recounted our stories and compared our cuts from the wire!

On the Monday we had to cruise for two or three hours longer than the rest of the group to try and catch them up. We did arrive at Pelsall Common but it was a chilly, miserable evening so most boats had battened down the hatches, lit their stoves and stayed in. In the morning I had more stuff around the prop but this could all be removed easily with my specially purchased bread knife. The offensive material was mostly plastic bags but also a school PE bag (no plimsolls inside). I travelled on Christine's boat up to Anglesey basin and back but it hailed (yes, it really did!!) when we got there so didn't get a chance to explore Chasewater. That night was fish and chips at Longwood Junction and five of us had a little ukelele session. There was also a raffle and I won a canal painting by one of the other boaters. Very nice too. We had a talk/musical performance about the BCN canals and their history by Phil Clayton.

The rest of the week went more smoothly and the weather was ok, too. We had a walk/history talk by Andy Tidy, a tour of Bradley lock gate workshop, a barbecue, a weed laden trip along the Walsall canal where I picked up a whole tent on the prop (luckily a bit easier to cut off than the wire had been). I would like to thank Chris for his help getting this off. At the end of the week we were back at Tipton for the canal festival. We had good hot weather so could enjoy the musical offerings and the craft stalls and so on. We had two meals at the Pie Factory - the Henpecked pie was wonderful - and those who had Mick's grill, served on a shovel, seemed to be enjoying it. Christine had two musical friends staying, Rick played banjo and Ellie played fiddle and with the rest of us on ukeleles we had a good session.

Birmingham cruising

I had stored Olivia at Hawne Basin while I went to Edinburgh festival for a week and then helped Luke cruise the Thames from Henley to Egham. Both were firsts for me. I absolutely loved Edinburgh! Five of us found wonderful accommodation just 20 minutes walk into the centre of things.

The view from our apartment:

The weather was fantastic, only needed my coat one evening when we had a bit of a chilly breeze. There was sooooo much to do and we found a few excellent shows. In fact I enjoyed all of those we went to except for one, a comedian who wasn't really funny. I would definitely go another time and this time I would be much better prepared.

The Thames was also fun (and reasonable weather too). Luke's little engine coped very well and held its own against the gin palaces :-).

The skipper:

I picked Olivia up at the beginning of September and moored back at Windmill End visitor centre. Next day I left the very friendly people that I met there and went through Netherton Tunnel, through Factory Locks and moored at Tipton. I liked Tipton, the water was very clear and there are a couple of good pubs about which more later. I discovered that Heather was coming to Birmingham to see Sylvie Guillem's last world tour so I managed to get a ticket for the same performance so that we could meet up. While staying at Tipton I got a bus to Walsall to visit the Art Gallery, which had a Jacob Epstein exhibition. Excellent. The next day I went on the Dudley Tunnel/Caverns trip. Wow. I didn't know there were such caverns. They are shortly to open a brand new visitor centre with restaurant/cafe.

As I was so close I went for a wander up to Wren's Nest where there are so many fossils, I searched for a Dudley Bug but only found one later (in the museum).

Heather had mentioned that Christine was coming up the locks at Aston/Farmer's Bridge so the next day I set off to help. She had got up the first five or six when she found an empty pound. CRT had turned up to help restore the levels and we were able to get on. When we reached the bottom of the Farmers flight, another boater had turned out to help AND there were three volunteer lock keepers, so the journey was very speedy indeed and Christine was able to moor at Cambrian Wharf before lunch. Heather arrived later that day and we went for a meal at the Fiddle and Bone as Linda was coming to play a spot at the Open Mic. Jim had driven Linda over so at the end of the evening Christine went back to Cambrian, the rest of us back to Tipton where Heather was staying on Linda's boat and I went back to Olivia. The next day Heather and I went back into Brum, met up with Christine for a meal in Chinatown and then we went to the Sylvie Guillem ballet. It was another excellent experience.

The next day I cruised into the centre of Birmingham where I met up with the BCN explorer group for the September cruise. We had a briefing and most of us ended up having a few drinks back in the Fiddle and Bone. On the Saturday, after a rainy night, we all started out for Titford Pumphouse. With twenty boats there were obvious delays at locks but it gave us the chance to get talking to each other. There were three of us single handing for the whole week and one single handing for half of the week. That evening, once we were all moored up, we had a Chinese meal delivered to us at the BCN HQ, a couple of musical turns from group members and a quiz.

On Sunday morning, the most intrepid boaters went up to Titford Pools. Hang on, I went, and I wouldn't say I was intrepid. Here are a couple of pictures from the Pools:

The reason for being intrepid is that very few people navigate the pools. We wondered why as they seemed absolutely fine. Ooops. On the way out my boat ground to a sudden halt with "something" around the prop. At the same time, Christine's boat grounded alongside mine. She was stuck in the shallows. Luckier boaters boarded our ships and attempted to help. I borrowed bolt cutters for what felt like wire arounf=d the prop and first me, and then Roland, had a go at removing the offending wire. However, the more we removed the more there seemed to be until we recognised that the wire was actually a sprung mattress!! In the meantime Christine's boat was trying to be towed by one boat, then two boats, forwards and backwards, but would not budge. I got towed back to the BCN HQ where several other people attempted to remove the mattress.

More later......