The weather's broken

A cooler day for the trip to Penkridge, with the rain being a bit of a relief.

A familiar stretch, but there is always something of interest, like another for our collection of unusual boat names...

To Wolverhampton

I've always enjoyed the canals in the countryside more than the city, but an early sunny morning in the city can be attractive.  As you cruise to the west, the water gradually gets cleaner, and the herons become more common.  Then, after a while, it gets much cleaner - but by then the human fishermen have taken over from the herons.  A long day, with hardly any other boats moving.  We followed another boat down the Wolverhampton flight, turning all but one lock, taking nearly four hours before mooring up opposite Oxley Marine in the rain.  At least it was fairly warm rain...

Into Birmingham

Another hot day, starting and ending in sunshine.

Along the way we saw what was a ruined and vandalised cottage at Yardley Wood now well advanced in reconstruction.

 

...and on a similar note, the cube , or is that The Cube, in central Birmingham now seems to be complete.

Hatton and Lapworth

On up Hatton locks in the heat, despite an early start became quite uncomfortable.  Another quiet day with not much traffic until we saw a crowd watching a plaque being unveiled at the top lock.

 Above the locks "Endeavour" stopped for water and we continued to Tom O the Wood which has reopened since we last passed this way.  It is looking good - we had a ploughmans which included ham, cheese and scotch egg.  The scotch egg was just cooked, with the meat warm and the egg yolk still just a little runny.  I've no idea how you would make that but it was very good.  Moored up with just four locks to do (and quite a few miles) to get to central Birmingham for tomorrow night.

Sweltering!

A short cruise today between a patch of shade at Radford, and another below the third lock of the Hatton flight.  Someone has put considerable effort to drag the bicycles, supermarket trollies and other assorted scrap metal out from under the first bridge on the way into Leamington.  I wouldn't be surprised if has all been thrown back in within the week though.

 

A surprisingly quiet day as far as boat traffic is concerned, and now that the cyclists and trains are becoming less frequent it is a fairly peaceful spot.

Another trip

We're out for a couple of weeks, and luckily for us we seem to have a good weather window.  Out this morning past the Boat Inn, unfortunately closed and looking for a new tenant.  There must be at least three or four who have tried to run this pub and then decided to move on in the ten, (or is it eleven), years that we have been visiting the area.

Just down the Stockton flight, we stopped for luch at the Two Boats, where the landlord mentioned that they had now been open for twelve weeks.  I remember the previous landlord talking about how hard it was to cover the cost of the rent from the takings, so I can only wish the new guys luck.

A quick trip to Braunston