Morgana is looking much smarter than she did when I left and my flowers are looking beautiful, Ray has kept them well watered in this scorching weather. We have the official 'go-ahead' for the floating market on the last weekend of September.
It's really quite exciting to be involved in something like this, I'm now busily crafting so that I have lots to sell, hopefully. I can't offer accommodation to any visitors but it would be lovely to see some familiar faces there.
On Thursday I went round the markets and stocked up on fruit and veg plus a couple of nice chunks of cheese. Apart from that I spent the day just enjoying the sunshine. Today it was time to move on, we have decided that we will spend the ten weeks between now and the market exploring the BCN ( Birmingham Canal Navigations). Birmingham is proud to boast that it has more canals than Venice, over 100 miles, although it used to be over 180 miles. It isn't as picturesque as Venice but it smells better! We may venture a bit further afield.
Today we travelled westwards and round the Icknield Port and Soho Loops before making our way up the Smethwick Locks to Sandwell. It proved to be a rather slow journey, firstly we stopped after less than an hour to clear some debris from the prop, then we had to stop again after ascending the locks as our water cooling inlet had become blocked so we were in danger of overheating and had to let everything cool down and finally the prop again became fouled so we found a spot to moor and gave up for the day. We did have some help at the top lock from a group of youngsters who were enjoying the sunshine and their release from school for the summer. As boaters we do tend to be wary of kids hanging around locks but these were very nice, polite lads.
Where we are moored is opposite the site of Sandwell Park Colliery wharf which was used to load coal onto boats until the colliery closed in 1960. Considering we are sandwiched between two large warehousing/distribution sites and about 200 yards from the M5 bridge over the canal it is remarkably quiet here, the noisiest things are the seagulls. The cats seem to like it here so we will probably stay here tomorrow as they have had to tolerate two weeks in the city center.
Today's journey 4.5 miles, 3 locks and 1 tunnel
This year we have travelled 306.7 miles, 288 locks, 6 swing bridges, 13 lift bridges and 6 tunnels
In 2012 we travelled 876.9 miles, 675 locks, 55 swing bridges, 23 lift bridges and 31 tunnels
In 2011 we travelled 461.4 miles, 444 locks, 3 swing bridges, 34 lift bridges and 15 tunnels
During 2010 we travelled 740.3 miles, 642 locks, 53 swing bridges, 4 lift bridges and 25 tunnels
Since Ray retired we have travelled 2385.3 miles, 2049 locks, 117 swing bridges, 74 lift bridges and 77 tunnels
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