Black Country Museum

Yesterday I successfully negotiated the 21 locks in the Wolverhampton flight - 5 hours of locking following a 2.5 hour cruise from the Black Country Museum to get to the start of the locks! So it was early to bed last night.

I spent Tuesday at the Museum. I'm not a great museum person. I tend to walk through them at normal outdoor walking speed and stop to look at one or two things that interest me. The exceptions are the Science Museum in London and, now, the Black Country Museum at Dudley - just outside Birmingham.

The museum represents (is?) a typical Black Country town in the early 20th century.

This was virtually a green-field site (actually a black field as it was covered with sewage sludge) with no buildings.

All of the buildings on the site (including the bridge you can see on the left hand side of this picture) were moved brick by brick from other locations and rebuilt in the museum. But the whole thing has been done so well that I still find it hard to believe. It would have been a wonderful achievement if they had just reconstructed the facades of the various houses and shops so that you could go into the front rooms.





But the real genius is that they have reconstructed everything including the typical junk that collects over many years. And, when you realize that there is nobody actually working in the buildings and sheds to create the junk, the naturalness of the whole thing is magnificent.









Apparently the faded cigarette ad on this building was on the bricks that were part of the building in its original location. When it was rebuilt the image was still there and has not been painted.







The shops and houses have all of the artefacts from the period - it really is like you have gone back in time.

It is a very large site with lots to see. Traditional chain making, a coal mine that you can go down, an old garage and vehicles, and a very early steam pumping engine, and more buildings are being reconstructed.

If you get a chance GO.

Birmingham and Churchill

There is no connection between these two items. Birmingham first.

Sunday night Leopard and I were in the centre of Birmingham - about where the picture was taken from. It was really cool to be so close to the city centre - just 10 minutes walk away. I had never been to Birmingham before and didn't know what to expect. The city centre is quite small, enclosed by a ring road, and it is hilly so a three level shopping centre can be on street level on each level - very confusing. The place is very attractive with some great buildings. I especially liked the Hyatt hotel which is flat glass with some of the higher stories extended a little so they create additional shadows and reflections. It was a thundery evening and the reflection of the changing skies looked spectacular.


This was the first time I managed to get good evening photographs. The camera tries to make them look like daylight and I discovered that telling it to seriously under-expose the image gets the right effect. Of course it is essential to sit the camera on a wall or something to hold it rock steady for the long exposure. (Its too much trouble to carry a tripod around).

And now Churchill.

I am working my way through Winston Churchill's 6-volume history of the Second World War. I got volume 1 in a charity shop for £1 and fiund it so un-put-downable that I bought the rest of the set in a 2nd hand shop. About 2/3 or 1/2 of the books consist of re-printed memos that Churchill wrote before and during the war. I've no doubt Churchill, like anyone else, had a selective memory of events, and another raconteur might emphasise other issues. But I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that there was no one else who could have led Britain to victory. And the story is so much more vivid for being supported by "live" documents. If you have not already read it, try it.

Churchill was 66 when he became Prime Minister in May 1940. And not content with winning the war, he then went on to write a 6-volume history of it - which would have been enough of an achievement in itself for most people.

Kingswood Junction

This junction is where the Grand Union canal meets the Stratford-on-Avon canal. It was raining when I took the photo.

I am on my way towards Chester - though plans might change.

On Wednesday there were 23 locks over a distance of about 4 miles and when I leave here there will be about 20 more. So I am taking a break!

The photo was taken through a railway bridge. The trains are only about a boat length away, and sound like they are coming in the front door. The freight trains sound especially good. First there is a high pitched musical shhhh from the rails. And if you have heard swans flying, imagine large dragons. That's what each container sounds like as it roars past at 70 mph, making the boat shake at 4 am. In the old days of steam engines there would also have been fire.

Just past Warwick I saw three alpaccas in a field behind a house. I'd never seen alpaccas before. They look like live pipecleaners.

Philosophical musings

It took me a while, on the Oxford canal, to realize that the trip was different from a holiday. Usually when you are on holiday you have an agenda to follow - places to get to, things to see, things to do - that keeps you busy each day.

But when you really have no time constraint things are very different. When you get up in the morning (I like doing than but I know that others don't) you really don't have to go to the next village today. You could do it tomorrow, or the day after, or next week.

So then what do you do with your time? I think the answer is to distinguish between trip days and other days. What would you be doing if you were not on a trip? Well, do those things on the other days.

This is not as simple as it sounds. It is easy to be distracted by your strange surroundings, which look like holiday but have to be treated as home. And, of course, you may have forgotten to bring some essential item that you cannot easily get within walking distance of Allen's Lock. (I haven't got a bicycle yet, but even that is not ideal for collecting large sheets of plywood - especially if it is windy.)

The cat was in the Severn Valley Railway station at Kidderminster - making sure the visitors did not make off with one of the exhibits. (I went to Kidderminster by car, but it is on a canal, I believe.)

Fish and Batteries

The long delay is only partly due to poor internet access while I was traveling.

The most interesting technical thing on my trip on the Oxford canal was battery charging. After a lot of interesting surmises about complex problems I eventually came to the conclusion that my batteries are no good because they take far too long to recharge. The net effect was that I was running my engine for a few hours each day just to add current to the batteries at a rate of about 20 amps. At about 1 litre of diesel per hour that is expensive electricity. I am now searching for affordable new deep cycle batteries.

Another side of this puzzle is the large amount of power used by my inverter (to operate my 230v fridge freezer) even when the fridge is not running. I almost convinced myself that I should have paid the extra £400+ for a 12v fridge. But if I replace the batteries and need less generator hours the power saving from the 12v fridge will not justify the higher price.







The last few days have been very hot in Braunston and the fish have been swimming near the surface where you can see them. I have been amazed at the huge numbers - not just of tiny tiddlers, but also of medium and large fish. They are very hard to photograph as I don't have a polarizing lens for my camera. And there was one enormous fish - bigger than anything I have seen on a fishmongers slab.

Oxford cruise - Episode 2

I had thought that living on a narrowboat was "laid back" but, compared to cruising it is really hectic.

Cruising on a narrowboat gets you away from it all like nothing else I know. On the one hand, even though you are travelling at walking pace you need to concentrate on steering because the turns are tight and the banks are never far away.







On the other hand you are in open countryside, often with fields that run down to the canal without a fence or hedge. This brings farm animals very close, and you are all the time surrounded by birdsong, and ducks. At this time of the year there are mothers with clutches of tiny puff-balls of ducklings.

Even when you come to a mooring place - for example near a bridge with a pub, or a marina, you are still shielded from what used to be the real world - your world is bounded by the towpath.

So when I stepped up onto the street in Banbury the cars seemed like odd creatures - what are they for? why are they hurrying? where are they going?

While cruising you hardly ever see a car. The only regular transport machine is the train as the railway lines were often built close to the canals.

The village of Cropredy












Banbury Cross and a Squirrel

Oxford cruise - Episode 1

Leopard has started her first 2009 cruise - down the Oxford canal to Oxford and, possibly, up the Thames westwards to Lechlade. It depends on our humour at the time.

The only time constraint is that I want to be back in Braunston for the historic boat rally on 27 June.



The first picture shows us topping up with diesel at Braunston before leaving (on Sunday 10 May).







This is our first view of open countryside after Braunston.







And a view of a busy section of the canal.







Cows enjoying the sunshine. Do cows enjoy? It's not for nothing that "bovine" means what it does!









I have been surprised by the numbers of sheep and lambs in the fields. Coming from Ireland I had an image of the UK having a huge population and very little open countryside. But there seems to be at least as much agriculture as in Ireland.





And this is where we stopped for our first night - out in the middle of nowhere. Well, actually it was just after bridge 123 on the Oxford canal.