Quite an energetic day, chilling in Brum

Saturday 5^th October; Sheepcote St Bridge to Rotton Park Junction and back

I was up early today to leave the boat at 8.15 (Dave wasn’t and I don’t blame him, it was cold).  At last we were on a suitable mooring on a Friday night so I could get to a parkrun on the Saturday morning.  I jogged along the towpath, well I actually walked most of the way to the reservoir, via Port Loop, the new development inside the Icknield Port loop, where there is now proper pedestrian access to the canal.

Edgbaston reservoir, renamed from Rotton Park – they must have though it sounded more respectable.  We ran round twice, or in my case jogged and walked.

You get all sorts at parkrun, from the speedy ones, who lapped the strugglers near the back, including me, on their second circuit while we were still on our first, to people who walk all the way.  And some are on wheels – sometimes propelling themselves, sometimes in a buggy and they are not always human!

Meow!

While I was enjoying the sunshine and the views, chatting to fellow slowcoaches and spotting parakeets in the trees, Dave was walking Jess to meet me.  We met in Port Loop.

Rather soulless.  It might be near the canal, but I would hate to live here.

When we got back, and after I’d put the kettle on for some badly needed coffee, we cast off and cruised up as far as Rotton Park Junction, where the Icknield Port and Soho Loops both meet the main line.  We needed to run the engine for some hot water so I could have a nice shower, and also turn the boat, as we start moving south tomorrow.

Hello! Rotton Park junction

We moored again on the Arena side this time, because it gets a lot more sun at this time of year when it’s cold in the shade!  And for the solar panels of course.  We'll have to put up with the extra footfall.  We had lunch - a choice of left-overs, pizza or curry.  Now, what to do for the afternoon?  Dave fancied a drink in the sunshine, and I wanted to visit the Roundhouse, which was open.  There only seemed to be two parts open, a café and the CRT display section, which is not very large.  I had thought there might be craft shops to browse, but not today.  The displays were quite interesting, focusing on the jobs that were done round here in the days when up to 50 horses at a time were housed here.  The night soil collection (ie sewage, people’s poo collected from their houses) had a display all to itself – collected by carts, brought to one of three wharfs to be loaded onto boats for removal and use as fertiliser to spread on fields.  Stinky job!  We boaters have it easy; even though pump-outs and elsans pong, at least it's only for a matter of minutes.   Some of the night soil was dried before being sold for fertiliser - they gave it a fancy french-sounding name but I can't remember what it was.  Started with p and ended with -ette.

An interesting one had a timeline from early evening to morning, with the old night work (night soil collection, lamplighters etc) above and below.  Not the best photo and I can’t remember what the blue and yellow lines represented, but at the bottom there were quotes from modern night workers (paramedics, police, outreach workers) with medical facts below the lines such as ‘increased risk to health’ later in the night.

The Distillery outside seating seen from the Roundhouse.  Jess wants attention, but Dave's reading the paper.

I went down to join Dave though I had a pot of tea rather than a lager.  We were sheltered from the wind and it was warm in the sunshine.  Back on the boat, I removed and cleaned the last three full-hopper windows and their channels, so that’s one job finished before the winter.   

Very green

We were nicely warmed by the sun, and the batteries were full.  

That's where we were  moored before, next to the green boat.  There is only about 2 hours of sun in the afternoon at this time of year.

Lots of trip boats went by, including one wedding party.  Their evening reception was upstairs in the Distillery – noisy music till 11!  We had a cosy evening inside with the fire, TV on, my laptop charging, all lovely till I heard the inverter beeping …..  the fridge had probably been running then I flushed the loo and it seems to have been too much.  We turned off the inverter, and everything else seemed to be ok, except that the solar controls had a large X across the display.  Hmmm.  The leisure batteries showed 10 point something volts, so something’s not right.  We have no idea how old the batteries are, they could even be the originals that went in when the boat was launched – there is no record in the documentation we have.  It probably means new batteries, anyway.  Hope the solar feels better in the morning!  We went to bed at our usual time around 10, while Birmingham night life continued ….

1 cruising mile