Left at 09:00
arrived at 13:05
We’ve been on the boat now
for 2 months, minus 6 days or so for good behaviour? Its hard to remember all the places we have visited,
it all seems a long time ago that we were in Stratford-on-Avon our original
first destination. The weather has been
the biggest surprise, cool when we set off to sub tropical now. It rained in the night but its warming up now
with a little breeze, the water is quite still and silvery and seems a bit cleaner
than yesterday. Turned left at King
Norton Junction House and passed under the newly renovated Guillotine Lock
(known as Lock 1) non working, just decorative nowadays. Timothy West had reopened it but there was sadness
when within a week of its opening it had been covered in graffiti and some
bricks had been knocked of the supporting pillars. It was
fairly clean but there is still graffiti, its all along the walls and fences
from Bourneville to here. There was a
curved building with impressive curved, mostly glass structures at either end,
it looked like flats or some such as you could see ornaments and curtains in
the windows, so one assumes its residential.
Mr. Heron appeared at the side of this very shady wooded canal, flying off
at intervals in front of us, I managed a snap of him eventually, he is very
quick. Saw some ducks, mallards and
black and white ones, I must look them up in my bird book. We passed a boat yard/chandlers etc. it had lots of moored boats around it and on
a little plaque it stated it was established in 1958, it had a commemorative plaque with a little log
cabin/shop and chandlery and looked very clean and well ordered, needless to
say we didn’t stop! At the water point further along the canal, there was a
beautiful “Canal Cottage”(its name ) the man who had been renovating it stopped
and had a chat to me, I complemented him on his workmanship and he gave me a
bit of the history of the cottage. He
said it was his and his sons project and he had been feeling a bit fed up till
he spoke to us and it had made him feel more like tackling his planned
fireplace, he went off with a smile and a wave, pushing his squeaky
wheelbarrow. Derek started to fill the
water up, there was a man on NB Polly just putting his hose pipe away as he had
filled Polly up. He was tattooed all over, including his bald head,
pierced in various places on his face
and hobbling on 2 crutches. We had a chat with him, he was really pleasant (so don’t
judge a book by its cover) he and his wife on were out on their newly made NB,
its painted black with stainless steel windows and was very smart, his friend
had made it for them and it was their second NB, their son had their old
one. I asked how he had got the bad
legs, he and his wife had been knocked off their 900 cc Triumph motorbike by a
lorry, he had extensive damage to both his legs and hips, his wife was inside
the boat with one arm in pot and the other with serious nerve damage, she is
waiting to go into hospital to have some nerves removed from her leg to put
into her arm. Ouch!! It all sounded
horrendous, he said he thought when he woke up in hospital it would be a few
sticking plasters, he was there for a month. I asked how they were going to
manage on the boat, he lives locally, his reply with a grin was, avoid
locks???? I went to the shop (co.op) got
some shopping to put us on for now, we will need more when Niamh comes, Derek
supervised the water. The guy told Derek
there was a lovely mooring place at Earlswood so if it’s ok, we will be staying
there for the night. There are lots of
properties with gardens down to the canal, it makes fro a very amusing piece of
water to sail by, it makes you wonder about the people who live there, the
garden ideas being both interesting and at times comical. I do think it would be nice to have your boat
moored at the bottom of the garden, I don’t however, contradictorily, want to
live near a canal. ! A Road/lift bridge was in front of us ‘Shirleys
Bridge’ I hate them, they usually are simple to use, this is an electronic one,
but I hate having to judge when to stop the traffic. Despite being a little country road it was
really busy. I let a few cars go by and inserted
the key and pressed the button, the barriers came down with no siren or bell
ringing (Derek said it had a red light) so if someone came round the corner
quickly, bang!! It only took a few
minutes, it didn’t seem to go up very high either, it didn’t seem high enough
but Derek got through ok, slightly ducking his head. When I put it back down, about 10 cars came
through, from both directions, I was glad to get away from that one. Sailing along feeling a little jaded, I
decided to make lunch, vowing that if possible we would be going out for tea? A
few boats had passed by regularly along this water then, one NB was mooring at
the side then a flotilla of three NBs came
up behind him, one was a hire boat, the others seemed to be private
ones, we had to pull back a bit away from the moored boat as the last tiny NB
was heading straight for us, it got through OK, with smiles and waves all
round. Dickens Heath was the next
village, according to my companion booklet “a trumpeted village for the 21st
Century, with balconied apartments” and as it goes on to say “which wouldn’t look
out of place in Fuerteventura”, it then stated that there are shops and
restaurants in there somewhere, but recommends not to go in as you may be stuck
in the future??? Not very complimentary
then! It was strange appearing out of a
wooded countryside with quaint houses and cottages, it was very clean and a bit
clinical as implied by the booklet, an old fashioned named place but with a
modern outlook! We arrived at Earlswood Motor Yacht Club (Lady Lane Wharf) It is
a mooring place, with a little offshoot of canal for more moorings and a
clubhouse/pub on the junction of the 2
pieces of water. Its quite
pleasant, out in the open, so we will get tele ok and it is where NB Polly told
us to stay. We moved down to a spot
where the permanent moorers were away, so we could moor opposite and wouldn’t be
making it difficult for other boats to pass.
Got settled, had a little walk up towards the Clubhouse to suss it out,
there is a Craft Centre near here but we asked the locals and its about a mile
a way, so we decided to give it a miss. We had a coffe at the clubhouse and
went back to the boat for a arrest till tea
time. Had a read of the paper and
went to the clubhouse for tea at 5 30, Derek had tandori chicken and chips and
I had my longed for fish and chips, we even had puds, piggy or what, we waddled
back to the boat and got set for tele and blogging.
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