A beautiful morning and not too far to travel as we are heading into Gas St basin in the heart of Birmingham. First off though we walked around Bournville. As a child my mother and I both loved Bournville dark chocolate. None of the milky stuff for us! Then a friend and I, when the children were small, became agents for a chocolate company and held chocolate parties in people’s homes. That’s when I became addicted to 70% plus chocolate! Bournville started to taste a bit waxy in comparison so I haven’t bought any in years. Mum still enjoyed it though so it brings back happy memories of her. We passed ‘Cadbury’s World’ where you can go on a tour of the chocolate factory. We did that on our first ever canal trip from which the whole idea of living on the water was birthed. We had picked up our narrowboat of nearly 70ft from Alvechurch marina, just a stones throw from where we now are. It was owned by a timeshare company called Diamond Resorts and the only available week was October half term. So a bit of a baptism by fire as the weather was inclement and the days fairly short and because we choose a circular route we had to travel a lot of hours daily to get the boat back to base within the week! However the very first challenge was a very long tunnel and I just remember us bumping this poor boat from side to side for over an hour! Funnily enough when we moored up in Birmingham today it was right next to one of the Diamond Resorts boats! I got chatting to the occupants, all in their early twenties I would guess. The one ‘in charge’ had been on numerous previous narrowboat holidays with his parents and this was the first time they had let him have a boys week without them! The boat was due back tomorrow so they were off loading their rubbish, which mainly I suspect contained empty lager cans! The boat looked in good order though so I wouldn’t imagine they had been too drunk and disorderly. You do come across a few party boats. Hiring a boat for a hen or stag weekend seems quite a popular event.
Just as we left Bournville we got chatting to a neighbouring hire boat awaiting another crew member. En route into the city we stopped for me to pop into Sainsbury’s and so further along the cut we found ourselves behind the hire boat which, for some reason was traveling very slowly. They kindly pulled to the side so that we could overtake them which was a novel experience. I’m not too sure of the etiquette of passing boats and to date it has never been an issue but I suspect as the weather improves and more boats come out of winter hibernation, we will find ourselves in a few boat queues, especially approaching flights of locks.
There is a spectacular network of canals in Birmingham and the canalside has been totally regenerated in the last ten years so there’s a real buzz, loads of people, restaurants and bars alongside the Sealife centre and a small Legoland. We moored up next to a boat selling a wide variety of fudge which appeared to be doing a roaring trade. I asked the vendor, who owned the boat, if it was a safe place to leave a boat unattended as we planned to spend the night with R’s uncle and aunt. He assured me that the bouncer who stood outside the bar we were moored alongside took no prisoners and would see off anyone misbehaving. He felt our boat would be fine and I also noticed that there were CCTV cameras monitoring the area. So with only a little trepidation we left the boat later in the afternoon. Prior to that my old flatmate from London days and her sister paid us a visit. They happened to be visiting their dad who lives in a residential home nearby so they took the opportunity to catch up with us and see the boat, which was lovely. One of the delights of being on the move is never quite knowing who we might be in the vicinity of and to take time catching up with old friends.
R’s uncle and aunt could not have been more accommodating. Hot baths, G&t’s, washing done, a lovely meal in elegant surroundings and a very comfy bed! All very civilised and welcome! Even a pile of newspapers from which I could scrounge a few codewords to keep me occupied in the early hours.
NarrowboatTLC 