Wednesday 23 September 2015

Bye-bye Birmingham

Surprise arrivals of boaty friends continued on Sunday with the arrival of John and Louise on nb “Ploddin Along” with their friends Rob and Fiona aboard.

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They joined us in The Malt House in Brindley Place while we were having some lunch with Russell and Julie(nb Nauti Lass) Not ones for shying away from a good get-together we pushed some tables together and we all enjoyed Sunday lunch. It’s a poor pic but here’s Russell, Louise, John, Rob, Fiona and Julie and we’re on the end out of sight. 

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Monday started very wet so we decided to stoke up the fire and stay put. That didn’t mean that we should turn down an invitation by John and Louise to have coffee with them on board “Ploddin Along”.

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Later on Monday, when the rain cleared up, we had a bit of excitement in Brindley Place with some filming of James May driving a car in the canal!

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Today (Tuesday) we left Birmingham having had the most marvellous of weekends and headed out of the city – past the enormous “Cube”, which was just a giant hole in the ground when we first came in 2008, ………….

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………. past a very important piece of British Cultural history. Where would be without Cadbury’s ?!

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Turning left onto the Stratford Canal at King’s Norton Junction we were soon passing through the lovely old disused guillotine stop lock. Sadly now covered in graffiti.

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The problems of low water levels in the last few days on this canal had, thankfully, been solved before we arrived. Water difficulties were not on the problem list today but Doug was. He woke up with no voice (all thoughts and comments welcome!) so James took over the windlass for the journey down the Lapworth flight of 20 locks.

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A quick zoom in on James’ face will show how he felt when Doug asked him to do the whole flight!

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Anyway, not looking too far ahead (20 locks!) he set to work with gusto …….

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…….  and, in a very reasonable time, the flight was a distant memory. We passed through Kingswood Junction and moored up for the night just short of bridge 63 at Turner’s Green and James will sleep well tonight!

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