The scene first thing in the morning outside the Eagle & Sun
pub.
At about 9am we continued on our journey down the Birmingham and Worcester
canal in glorious sunshine and soon reached the excitement of the Dunhampstead
tunnel. After that, Nicola had her first experience of steering and took
charge for a few miles.
Lauren sat on the roof being the look-out, although usually it was a
case of "Lauren, look out!" Still, she was able to use her wildlife
book to identify all the dead species we were seeing.
Filling up the water tank - you know that it's full when it spurts
out all over you. A good job for the kids to do.
I resumed the steering when we reached the Offerton locks and by now was managing to enter locks with a minimum of bumping against the sides. However, as the crew began to tire of operating locks, I felt Nicola had gained a sufficient level of steering competence to get us through the locks and I turned my hands to the lock mechanism. For much of the rest of the day's travel Nicola steered, with the exception of a brief section of steering from Lauren, and we cruised pleasantly down to Worcester in superb sunshine. By 6pm we were moored up at Diglis Basin, very close now to the end of the Birmingham and Worcester canal and the entry into the River Severn, our route for tomorrow.
We whiled away our Sunday evening by trying to find as many words as
we could from the letters of CHOCOLATE PUDDING. Between us
we found 435. Amongst them we found some interesting pairs including:
hot, cold; cat, dog;
clothed, nude; lactic, acid;
plane, lathe; hidden, located;
lap, dance.
Strange the things you do on holiday...
