Thursday 23rd May
Before I start, two things I forgot to mention yesterday – The Black Prince beaching attempt at the junction and the ear-wigging pub customer’s comments.
On our way to the pub we were crossing the Coventry Canal to get to the Watling Street Bridge to cross the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal at the junction, when from up the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal came a Black Prince hire boat. We watched in amazement as he shot through the bridge and headed straight across the Coventry Canal towards the opposite bank (this is like coming out of a blind T junction on a road) at break neck speed, with not a care in the world, making no effort to either, slow down or turn right or left.
We all started shouting at him to stop, unfortunately the only way he was going to stop was by hitting the concrete bank head on, which he did. The front of the boat came right out of water and dropped back down with a crash! His wife, obviously totally embarrassed, started burbling on about it being something they could tell the family when they got home and he just looked stunned. It was a good job there had not been a boat coming at the time because the result could have been disastrous!
We told them that his wife should really have been at the front of the boat so she could let him know – a) how near to the bank he was getting and – b) if there was anything coming because obviously he couldn’t see round the corner.
While we were in the pub there was a bloke sitting near us, reading the paper, apparently minding his own business. After a while, obviously absolutely fascinated by our conversation, he suddenly piped up, ‘ All you lot seem to do is eat, drink and go shopping!’ Pretty much sums us up actually!
Anyway, on to today, as you can see instead of going to Tamworth on the bus we have moved to Hopwas from Fazeley. As I have already said, the reason we decided to meet at Fazeley was because we were both, ultimately, going in different directions and it was easy for us both to turn there but Mick was hoping we would go down to Fradley with them so, not really having any firm plans, we thought we might as well. If we get there and can’t moor up on the Coventry side we may have to go down the locks and end up in Alrewas!
We were going to do this trip tomorrow but the forecast is awful, wet and windy (for a change) so we did it today and will go to Lichfield on the bus tomorrow instead. You’ll remember that Lichfield is where I fell over outside the pub last time we were there! I will be endeavouring not to repeat the exercise.
Ken and Cathy still have to do their greasers and I still have to clean the boat (too wet this afternoon although I did think about it) and Mick still has to polish his tiller arm and his foxes!
