23rd Brewood to Dudley

Woke early, left early - a beautiful morning, mist on the canal surface and low morning light. A kingfisher sitting on a tiller arm looked so incredible as to be unbelievable, and the picture is in my mind rather than the camera. We found ourselves creeping through the the IWA festival moorings before nine - way too early to join Bones and posse in the beer tent - another time, though.

Was very taken with the minature canal boat 'Sarni' - not least as idle daydreams about a direct pedal drive boat as a scale model had suggested something similar, although it'll never happen (and look even sillier than tortoise already does in locks)...



Poor Brigid - first time on a canal boat, and first morning we're faced with the 21 lock Wolverhampton flight. She rose to the challenge magnificently, at first I was in & out of the boat single handed, but we slowly worked out ways of efficient working between us. Four hours later we stopped at the top for a trip to find food (reasonably successful) and recycling bins (less so - found paper & mixed glass bins almost randomly in the street, but not cans, and no-one knew where we might find one (or even why). I often intend to write letters that never get sent, but one to BW encouraging them to ask each local council to provide recylcing bins at each facility point. It can't be rocket science, hardly any more work for BW, but at the moment there are hardly any. Oops, editorial comment - I'll be having opinions next.

Then on through the fairly dull (to me, exciting to Brigid) black country scenery (mainly empty industrial sites) to the recommended mooring at the Black Country Museum. It seems a shame to have to try to moor behind locked gates, but since no-one moors anywhere else, it's pretty sensible. There Phil & Neil came to visit on the way home from the IWA festival. I'd warned Phil that if his boat was a floating cottage mine was more of a floating shed, but he was quietly amused... ;-)