Bentley Bridge to Birmingham

We have had a couple of horrendous weather days, wind and rain, but looking at the news I think we were probably let off lightly compared to other parts of the country.

The moorings at Bentley Bridge are so handy as you are right on the retail park and we had a good stock up at Aldi, we also treated ourselves to a visit to Cineworld and watched Fantastic Beasts and where to find them. It was great just strolling back to the boat, which was probably a lot closer than some of the other people had their cars parked.

We left yesterday morning and made our way back to the junction with the Main Line of the Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN). The plan was to do an hour at a time on the tiller each as we thought it would take around five hours to get into Birmingham. James took the first hour whilst I was inside tagging pens, then we swapped so I had Coseley Tunnel to get through, it's only a short one at 360 yards. 

Left turn and we're back on the Main Line

The junction at Tipton where the Old Main Line goes off

Just coming out of the middle lock at Factory Locks

We were soon at the junction at Tipton where the Old Main Line goes off, but this time we continued down Factory Locks on the New Main Line. As James was suffering a bit with a migraine I carried on steering.

Very straight and wide

That's the Netherton Tunnel Branch

And the hill that the tunnel goes through

The railway runs along side most of the way

Lots of little dead end arms and basins now

And past the Gower Branch which links the Old and New Main Lines via three locks

A few narrow bits to negotiate

Pudding Green Junction, this leads to Walsall

More dead end arms

This is Bromford Junction which leads up three locks and joins the Old Main Line 

That's the M5 and the Old Main Line also crosses on the brick bridge

Concrete supports for the M5, the brick bridge carries the Old Main Line with the railway line crossing that 

Looking back, the brick bridge carrying the Old Main Line and the M5 above that

It was a nice dry still day, but a bit chilly

Smethwick Galton Bridge railway station is on this bridge

Smethwick Pump House

That leads through to a little basin - Monument Road Basin Bridge

The New Main Line is very straight so can be a bit tedious, but I was enjoying it having the canal completely to myself, we only past one moored boat and that was at Smethwick Pump House. James took over the tiller on the approach into Birmingham and we past a few people we know moored by Barclaycard Arena, there were waves and shouts of hello, but we continued on through to Cambrian Wharf where we took the last spot and had a lovely welcome from Josh and Peter who had come out to see us. 

We needed to pop straight to the CRT office as our delivery of leaflets for the floating market had arrived and on the way back we stopped off to see Kailey and Josh on their new butty and enjoy a catch up and coffee with them. 

14 miles and 3 locks

TOTAL 711 miles and 650 locks

January

We left the Black Country Living Museum on 2nd and passed through Tipton and, behind the slowest boat ever, down Factory Locks. We arrived to a very quite Birmingham and moored in Cambrian Wharf. We had a visit from Peter and Heather who were in Birmingham for the day. About a week later they joined us in Cambrian Wharf on their boat Blackberry Way, enjoying a couple of visits to Jimmy Spices making good use of their promotional offer of buying one dinner and getting the second for £1 - well it would be rude not to wouldn't it?

A very quiet Cambrian Wharf after we had left

On 17th January we received the very sad news that James' Grandad had passed away - he had reached the grand age of 98 and up until a few days earlier had still been living very independently and strolling into his local town of Cardigan in West Wales. So on 22nd we headed off to Wales, as unusually his funeral was on a Saturday. The service was very well done, although obviously sad, but it was nice to see lots of family who we haven't seen for a while, Jess and Lee had also made the long journey up from Poole so it was lovely to see them again too.

On a happier note on Saturday we went out to celebrate Heather's birthday and we had a fantastic evening at Ming Moon, another all you can eat buffet, we certainly got value for money and the food was delicious. Their daughter Andrea was there too along with her husband Russ and son Tyler who did very well considering he's only 3 years old. We got a taxi back to Blackberry Way for a night cap, then we staggered back to LJ on the other side of the canal.

Andrea took this picture of me, James, Peter and Heather

Paradise Forum is being demolished which formed part of the old library, thought I'd better get a photo to look back on. 

The old library is coming down slowly

Lock 11 on the Farmer's flight having a bit of TLC

Well the counters have been reset, so here goes for 2016.

9.5 miles and 3 locks

Catch Up

Well I'll pick up from the beginning of December when we were making our way into Birmingham. We had a couple of days spare so stopped off at Merry Hill and managed to get a bit of Christmas shopping done there. We moored up on the embankment, which was a first for us, we had a great view over the shopping centre and were the only boat there, although there were three others round the corner in the wide part opposite Wetherspoons.

Overlooking Merry Hill Shopping Centre

We then continued our journey into Birmingham stopping for a night or two at Windmill End. I had a few more pen orders to post off and James was continuing on making stock for the market.

Blowers Green Lock

Windmill End / Bumble Hole Nature Reserve

We arrived in Birmingham on the Wednesday, giving us Thursday to organise everything before the market started on Friday. It was good to catch up with our fellow traders, we hadn't seen most of them since September.

We set up fully on Friday and had a great day, trade was good despite not many people around. However, Saturday and Sunday the weather took a turn for the worse and was windy and raining, all we could do was set up a display in our pram canopy by the window for those brave enough to venture out, we did have a few knocks on the boat and managed some sales. It was also lovely to see some friends and previous customers, some who had come especially to get some pens for Christmas gifts. We ended the weekend with six pens in stock so really can't complain at all.

After the market we stayed around Birmingham, finishing our Christmas shopping before heading back out to Tipton then off through the huge Netherton tunnel, the small Gosty tunnel (which we had to take our roof boxes off for) and down into Hawne Basin where we were leaving the boat for our Christmas trip to Poole to Jess and Lee.

We spent a lovely few days in Poole, it really is never long enough, before heading up for a flying visit to my Mum and then over to West Wales for another flying visit to James' Mum and Dad. Then back to Hawne Basin and LJ. Dudley coped well with the journey although he didn't enjoy it at all, I think he preferred our train journey earlier in the year than the car.

We got back to the boat late on the 30th and left Hawne Basin on New Years Eve, we moored up outside the Black Country Living Museum at Tipton and in the evening caught up with friends in the Fountain Inn to see in the New Year.

34 miles and 10 locks

TOTAL FOR 2015 - 772 miles and 612 locks

Birmingham

Wow, our couple of days in Birmingham turned into two and a bit weeks and it could have been a lot longer if we didn't need to move on. There is soooo much going on, the improvement works at New Street Station are finished and Grand Central was officially. The Arts Fest was on for our first weekend with loads happening and of course the RCTA Floating Marketing. We have also been kept busy with visitors to the boat and also going out the friends and fellow traders.

So on our first Thursday it was off to the market to pick up some bargains, in the afternoon we had a surprise visit from Kirsty.  On Friday the floating market opened and we had wander around meeting a few traders we haven't met before. In the afternoon James caught up with a bit of turning before we set off to the ICC for the JazzLines performance in the Symphony Hall cafe. After that it was back to the market for the big illumination switch on, Kev kindly said I could use his photo of the boats, mine attempt was very poor in comparison.

JazzLines

Then to Centenary Square for the Maudits-Sonnants.

Saturday Chris and Karen came to visit, they were up in Birmingham for the day from Hawkesbury Junction and popped into to say hello, in the afternoon Rebekah and Beth who live in Birmingham popped in as well. In the evening we walked down to Millennium Point and the Rugby Fanzone to watch the England/Wales game, it was packed with thousands of disappointed England fans.

Sunday we spent the majority of the day at the floating market talking to all the traders, there were about twenty boats trading, Dudley was loving it meeting all the peoples and dogs. There was also a parade with a giant puppet of Lady Godiva.

Monday we moved round to Cambrian Wharf with the only available space under the pub, we managed to get on with painting the gas lockers and back deck though. In the evening there was a boaters get together in the Figure of Eight, as more and more people arrived we ended up taking over a huge section of the pub, I think it's fair to say we all had a great evening.

On Tuesday bleary eyed we moved across to the mooring by the lock as a couple of historic boats had vacated, at least we would now get some sun for the solar panels and get the painting finished. The weather had turned lovely and warm again.

We had Peter and Heather for a visit too, they were up in Birmingham for the day, we were in the spot where they used to have their permanent mooring so it must have been strange for them to see another boat there.

The rest of the week was taken up with visits to the market and shops and also pottering around with little boat jobs. We were also told about the University of Birmingham's bakery, where the bread the students make go on sale to the public at very reasonable prices. If there is any left over it goes on sale the next day for 10p a loaf. We've made a few trips down there coming back with various flavoured breads, tea cakes, scones, chocolate éclairs and doughnuts. We managed to resist the swiss rolls and various other yummy things.

I was out on our front deck doing a bit of sorting and sweeping when a boat arrived into Cambrian Wharf, the couple shouted out to the CRT fundraiser, who sets up a stall near the lock, asking which were the moorings for visitors, she wasn't sure so I pointed them to the last two spaces remaining. As they were pulling in I mentioned to James that they looked like Les and Jaq, but that it wasn't nb Valerie. It turn out it was them and they had painted Valerie so were in disguise. It was lovely to finally meet them after spending years following their blog. We have enjoyed a lovely lunch aboard Valerie with them and they came to us a few evenings later.

Jaq, Les and James

James had found out about Aston Hall on the LiveBrum website and they were holding free tours on Sunday, so we trekked the two and a half miles down to Aston Hall and managed to get onto one of the tours. I'll do a separate blog about it soon as I found it very interesting.

For about the last week we have been say we'll leave tomorrow, but something always comes up. On Tuesday we said we would definitely be leaving Wednesday, but when it arrived it was pouring, windy and quite chilly so we stay put. Later in the day we had a phone call from James' uncle Dave, Dave and Liz were on their travels in their Campervan and were staying at Kingswood Water Park at the bottom of the Curdworth Locks. So a visit was arranged for Thursday morning, we gave them a postcode of the Flapper pub and told them where we were.

Thursday morning arrived and was a beautiful day lovely blue sky and feeling quite warm. We took Dudley for a stroll and saw Keri and Dan just arriving back with their Butty Lyra. After chatting with them for a while we went back to LJ and were surprised to see Dave and Liz had already arrived. Whilst inside enjoying coffee and catching up with them Annette, the local CRT Enforcement Officer knocked to say hello and introduce herself (after our communications earlier in the year it was good to meet her). We set sail shortly after just going up past Gas Street Basin to the Mailbox and return, we moored up by the ICC and popped up to Brindley Place where enjoy enjoyed a lovely lunch with Dave and Liz followed by drinks outside the Malthouse in the sun. All too soon it was time to say goodbye to them so they could continue their journey south. It was lovely to see them both again and really nice they popped over to see us.

James with Liz and Dave

We moved the boat from outside the ICC back to the mainline outside the NIA (or Barclaycard Arena aas it's now known). We walked round to Cambrian where Tom and Jan, Waiouru, has taken our space, they were outside chatting to Les and Jaq so it was a quick hello, catch-up and goodbye. It was sad to say goodbye to Les and Jaq too but hopefully we'll see a bit more of them in the future months.

Inside Grand Central at New Street Station

Outside the Council Offices, "this stunning display is a section from Birmingham's award winning entry at the Chelsea Flower Show".