Karen had to pop into the
office for a couple of meetings on Friday, but I knew she wouldn’t be tempted
to stay too long as Chris and Sue were coming over for the afternoon. Chris and I worked together off and on for 15
years starting in the last century; they also have a narrowboat and are going
to be moving aboard full time in the near future. Chris obviously hadn’t forgotten me as he
brought over a bottle of port 😉 oh, and an azalea for Karen 😊
We had a pleasant
afternoon talking boats and the pros and cons of living aboard full time and,
hopefully, they picked up some tips from us.
It was quite fascinating as, when asked the direct question, ‘What are
the negatives of living aboard?’, we both found it hard to come up with
anything. The answers were more around
things away from the boat, like what to do with personal stuff that you don’t
need on a boat but really don’t want to get rid of.
Heavy rain was forecast
for most of Friday night but fading off by the early morning. That was fine for us as we needed to get a
good cruise in on Saturday. The rain
stopped about 10 and we set off at 11.
Just as we cast off, Raymond and Marie came past on their boat, ‘Two Odd
Nuts’. They moved aboard full time last
year after retiring and we have bumped into them a few times since. They were on a mission like us but in the
opposite direction. They needed to get
down the Lapworth locks before they closed for maintenance on Monday morning
whereas we had to get through the lift bridge at Shirley before it also closed
on Monday.
We only had four locks to
climb and as Raymond and Marie had just come down them they were all set for
us. The sky was completely blue and we
couldn’t believe it had been raining hard an hour previously – at least we
didn’t have to water the plants before setting off which had been on the job
list for the day.
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Looking back at the first
lock of the day
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Karen showing why I
shouldn’t attempt to wind lock paddles with my weak back – I don’t think she
needed to have bent over that much to make her point though
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It seemed no time at all
before we were approaching the top lock and what would be our last lock for the
next seven weeks.
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Approaching the last lock
of the day
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Buddy in position at one
of the locks
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We are going to be trapped
in about 28 miles of canals (in a sort of Y shape) due to closures for winter maintenance. Those 28
miles cover from Lapworth to the end of the Stratford canal at Kings Norton
where it meets the Birmingham & Worcester canal which will be closed about
12 miles to the south at Tardebigge. We
will also be heading north into the centre of Birmingham in a couple of weeks
as we are seeing Deep Purple at the arena and, as luck would have it, we will
be able to moor right outside.
Still, we will have plenty
of places to cruise around and there are water points and boat yards for
services, so I think we have it all planned out. We will probably spend most of the time
moving between Birmingham and Tardebigge, taking in places like Alvechurch,
Hopwood and Edgbaston, all of which have good parking and are not too far from
Karen’s work.
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Karen waving goodbye at
the last lock for seven weeks
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Just after the top lock is
a house with a sign that always makes us laugh.
The house backs onto the canal but seems to shut itself off from it:
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Canal hidden by hedges
(there are also great views across the farmland opposite that they have hidden
away from too)
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The sign on the house that
really makes me want to moor there (they have no right to stop us mooring there
by the way)
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We then came to our first
lift bridge of the day. It was one of
those where the controls are on the opposite side to the towpath where the best
mooring spots are, so it’s much easier when there are two of you. Otherwise you have all the hassle of mooring
up on the wrong side, operating the bridge, moving the boat through and mooring
up on the wrong side again before dropping the bridge back down again.
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Lift bridge at the top of
Lapworth
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Next, we pulled up at
Swallow boatyard to fill up with diesel, water and replace one of the empty gas
bottles.
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Buddy guarding the water
hose as usual
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After leaving the boatyard
we arrived at the second lift bridge of the day. This one is called a drawbridge rather than a
lift bridge but we’re still not sure of the difference.
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Hockley Heath lift/draw
bridge
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We moored up at Hockley
Heath for lunch and also popped into the village to get our Saturday paper.
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Moored at Hockley Heath
for lunch. To the left is the remains of an arm that used to run down to
wharves (there is now a pub there called the Old Wharf).
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Apart from getting a paper
we had a nose in an estate agents window (as is our want) and a nose at the
McLaren and Rolls Royce garage (as not is our want). Oh, we also bought fish and chips as the
smell was irresistible which meant that the pumpkin soup Karen had defrosted
for lunch would have to wait until Sunday.
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Up market canal side
garage
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After lunch I set off
again whilst Karen stayed inside for a while and carried on with her GBBO
exercises – she had made some dough in the morning and it was ready to be
converted into a cottage loaf.
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The final result – the two
sections stayed together and it wasn’t heavy inside 😊
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We were soon going under
the M42 which, to me, is the boundary that marks the outskirts of Birmingham; a
bit like everything inside the M25 is London (as well as a lot outside it these
days).
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The M42 bridge across the
Stratford canal
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After another couple of
miles or so we were approaching the lift bridge at Shirley. This is the bridge that was going to be
closed for a few weeks from Monday – they are updating the control system and
building a pedestal so the operator can see the road and barriers more easily.
The lift bridges we went
through in the morning were wound up manually as they were just entrances to
farms. The Shirley lift bridge carries a
road so is electronically controlled by our boat key which sets off a sequence
of turning the traffic lights red, lowering the barriers and then raising the
bridge. The boat comes through and the
reverse operations take place. Most car
drivers are courteous and wave etc. even though they have been held up but we
have come across impatient people in the past – fortunately not today.
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Karen at the controls with cars queued behind her
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We moored up for the day
just past the bridge and were entertained for several hours by the many
firework displays in the area. There
were two displays in particular, one to the front of the boat and one to the
rear, that seemed to have been located so the fireworks reflected in the water.
A quick update on my parents: Mum is coping really well at home on her own and has her independence back; Dad is improving but still has a chest infection which is debilitating him. He is getting plenty of physio in the hospital which will slowly bring his strength and mobility back.
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