Catch up

Yes there has been a gap in the posts.  It’s not that we’ve been lazy but rather the laptop has been very busy.  That one legged man on the three wheeled skateboard made far faster progress than advised and our hard drive arrived on the 3rd rather than the 9-11th.  Consequentially the laptop has been grinding away for the last two days shuffling data around between four hard drives.

This morning we awoke to find the canal iced over.  So much for the theory that the ambient temperature in a large urban area would be sufficiently high as to avoid ice.

Around 9.30am Jan heard the sound of breaking ice and looked out the side hatch to see a CRT working boat heading north out of the CBD.  It returned a couple of hours later which led me to suspect the crew had taken the boat to Hockley Port (I was wrong! misjudged the destination)

We walked into the city centre before lunch heading to the Bull Ring Markets first as Jan wanted some wool.  The next stop was WH Smith for her “missing” magazine. 

Perhaps you are like me and can remember your childhood books.  I had the complete set of Noddy and didn’t notice anything unusual in Noddy and Big Ears sharing a bed.  Nor did I see anything untoward with the naughty gollywogs.  My reading progressed on to Enid Blyton’s Famous Five which I preferred over the Secret Seven.  I thought I’d read all the Famous Five books until we walked into WH Smith today.

I definitely don’t remember reading these two!

A canal walk in the afternoon revealed that the CRT boat had gone up Icknield Port Loop in the morning rather than the Soho Loop to Hockley Port.  This appears to be a little used loop and I did wonder why?  However during the walk I noticed more CRT staff exiting from Icknield Loop on the towpath with full plastic bin bags and litter picking tongs.  I assume this was a rubbish cleaning operation.

I continued walking to the Soho Loop and then along the towpath to Hockley Port.  On the way I came upon a male cleaning the towpath of litter by picking up the bags, bottles, etc and throwing it into the canal.  When I queried him as to the sensibility of his actions he looked at me as if I were stupid but at least he stopped until was out of view.  Why do I have the impression a village somewhere in England is missing its idiot!

We’ve moored in Hockley Port on a previous visit to Birmingham.  The area is 90% long term moorings with the 24 hour visitor mooring on the right.  You might be able to see the white tops of the mooring bollards immediately beyond the trees on the right in the next photo.

The CRT services are at the far end of the arm on the right. 

On my return to our mooring I immediately noticed the boat two in front of us (front left in the next photo) had erected a temporary flagpole and was flight a RAF flag.

Yes, it’s the Milly M.  Maffi and Molly have arrived in Birmingham.