Today we went past a wharf with a roof over it, and an interesting history. The roof was to prevent goods from getting rained on while being loaded and unloaded. What precious commodities, you ask, could not stand a drop of rain? Sugar! Cocoa! Chocolate! This was the wharf for a Cadbury’s factory, where milk from local dairy farms was collected by canal boat, and processed with sugar and cocoa into raw chocolate which was then shipped by canal boat…
It was not actually raining when we set out this morning, but after an hour or so it was coming down heavily enough that we moored the boat to sit it out. About five hours later it was still raining, but the sky was brightening up, and it was down to a light drizzle so we set off again, through the only lock in twenty five miles of canal. We stopped at a watering point to fill the tank with…
A brief update today, as Internet connectivity is weak here. We bid a fond farewell to the Staffs and Worcester today and turned onto the Shropshire Union. This is a apparently a euphemism for mating shopping carts. That’s where wire shopping baskets come from. I think we ran over a shopping cart in the canal in Kidderminster a couple of days ago. The boat won, but we had a scratchy, crunchy time of it for a few moments. All sorts…
It has to be said, the one emotion that the Pre-Raphaelite painters were capable of capturing was boredom. It’s pretty sad when the most exciting thing about a picture is the frame. I wonder what this model is thinking? “Just two more hours of this pose and then I can go to the loo.” You may notice that many Pre-Raphaelite women look similar. That’s because they only had a few models and they traded them around. I suppose it takes…
You might think that Botterham Bottom Lock is some sort of anal chastity belt, but in fact is it stage one of a two stage “staircase” lock, where the water from the top lock fills the bottom lock, and you are faced with double high gates in the middle. That was our final lock for the day, which was spent heading north on the Staffs and Worcester, back the way we had come a week ago, and then past the…
When I go into a public toilet, which I do frequently on this trip so we don’t have to pump out the holding tank as often, I expect to find soap. I’m an old fashioned bar soap kind of a guy, but I’m willing to put up with liquid soap from a dispenser, or even a quick squirt of foam. What I got today was a Lemon & Black Pepper Fragrance Explosion Hand Wash. Seriously? I have some fish in…
Poor Internet connectivity here, so today’s update will be photo free. We set off back up the Staffs and Works this morning. Oh, dear, looks like the engine room is filling up with water, and the bilge pump is not working. We stopped in Kidderminster to visit Tesco (more Nanny State hoppity hop hop) and to manually bale out the bilges. I will never badmouth a bilge pump again. There was a mixture of sunshine and rain today. The second…
No, the title is not a comment on the Brexit vote today. We finally managed to score some of the non alcoholic beer that Nick recommended in the comments. Hops! Hop hoppy hop hops! Hoppity hop hop! I now have hop scented steam coming out of my armpits. So many hops you don’t notice there isn’t any alcohol. Good stuff, but a bit on the hoppy side. In other beer related news, here’s the recipe for Butter Beer that is…
Today we visited another stately home and garden. This is Hanbury Hall, home of the Vernon family from the early 1700s until the 1960s. Thomas Vernon was a successful London lawyer, and to show off his wealth he built this fine place in the country. The true aristocrats looked down on the nouveau riche, though, and Vernon and his ilk were referred to as “Red brick gentry”. Hanbury did not have the oak panelling of older homes. The wood panelling…
This morning we set off towards Stourport, through the town of Kidderminster. The church in Kiddy looks impressive from the canal. In the center of town, an old warehouse converted into a Debenhams department store provides an equally impressive view. Such is the nostalgia for the old utilitarian warehouses that line the old canal wharves that new blocks of flats (US: apartment buildings) beside the canal are constructed in the style known as Warehouse Vernacular. So, if Britain votes to…