Karen has been parking the
car overnight in the Hopwood House pub car park for the week or so we have been
moored here. There is a large sign at
the entrance saying that the gate will be locked overnight but when we first
got here I had a chat with a couple of people and they said it is only locked
at weekends. I didn’t quite understand
the logic, but they said the travellers tend to turn up at weekends. As we are quite near junction 2 on the M42 a
lot of lift sharers seem to use the pub car park; leaving one car in there and
then being picked up by another.
Anyway, on Tuesday morning
Karen called me whilst I was still in bed (it was 5.45am after all!) saying
that the car park was closed ☹ It clearly wouldn’t be opened any time soon as the
staff wouldn’t arrive that early in the morning so she came back to work from
the boat whilst I sorted out a taxi for her.
The first plan had been to get a taxi to Alvechurch station and then trains
to Leamington via Birmingham and then a bus to the offices. Once we thought about it we decided to order
a taxi all the way to work as it wouldn’t cost much more and would be a lot
quicker.
This was the first time
this had ever happened to us and we know it was our fault. Before anyone says anything, we always
provide custom to the pubs we visit and some, like the Tom o’the Wood in
Rowington, encourage boaters to use the car park to make the pub look busy 😉
On one of my first walks around
here last week I came across what I thought was an unused observatory on top of
Wast Hills.
Having researched it on
the Birmingham University web site I find it is still in use and even had a
major upgrade a few years ago. It was
built in the early 1980s and the site was chosen because the sky was about 100
times darker at Wast Hills than at the campus.
Hockey and soccer fields have been built near it since so that isn’t the
case when the floodlights are on.
Because of the type of telescope
used (an equatorial English mount) the building had to be aligned exactly on
the north-south axis. Apparently, the
north-south line was staked out in the snow using a theodolite and the
foundations subsequently dug. When it
came to mount the scope, it was found that the alignment wasn’t quite correct but,
fortunately, adjustments could be made to the mountings to bring it into the
correct line.
Today I will probably have
a look around Alvechurch to find a good place to moor near ‘safe’ car parking
spots. The wind should die down
overnight so I may cruise down there tomorrow.
Mum & Dad update: Mum is still doing fine on her own and
walking further each week. Dad is still
in hospital and suspect he may be there some time as he needs constant care. The physios are doing a good job on restoring
his strength though, so his release may not be too long.
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