Wednesday 16th May
We spent this morning wandering up to find The Bullring as we had to visit a bank and explored the adjacent markets. In New Street I bought a couple of short sleeved shirts in Primark, as mine seem to have shrunk since last summer, Joy got a couple of tops too and on the way back we discovered Cherry Red’s Cafe Bar where we sampled a swift half each of Hogan’s Cider and Salopian Brewery’s Divine Comedy (a dark mild)
On our return to the boat I tried on my shirts and found that despite being the same size one was too small so I had to go back and exchange it (“Oh that will be because it’s a ‘Muscle Fit’ Sir” … “What, you mean it’s cut too small???”)
Paul and Rosemary arrived mid-afternoon feeling exhausted having had a much harder time coming up the locks than we did.
Thursday 17th May
We declared today a Rest Day, but Rosemary and her daughter still managed to hit the shops whilst we contented ourselves with cruising up to the water point and turning around, a short walk to Tescos and washing & polishing one side of the boat.
Friday 18th May
We left in convoy with nb Henry Chichelle at 9:20 this morning, through Gas Street Basin & Broad Street bridge taking the New Main Line out of Birmingham. This was the M6 of it’s time, with toll island to charge boats for the privilege of the new direct, often die straight, route.
The only locks today were the Factory Three which we reached about lunchtime and in less than another couple of hours we were at another Broad Street bridge, this time in Wolverhampton where we winded and moored up with all the other boats taking part in the BCNS Explorer Cruise, which starts tomorrow.
After an informal meeting we repaired to The Great Western a proper ‘real ale’ pub with believe it or not a railway theme!