Staying put

Saturday 23^rd August; Birmingham

The main reason for our long cruise yesterday was so that I could do parkrun at Edgbaston Reservoir this morning, so I was up early to take Jess out.  I noticed a few little patches of bright green algae suspended above thousands of little floating green filaments.  I hoped it wasn’t going to become a serious problem as it’s toxic to dogs – we don’t expect her to fall in but it has been known! And we often have to get her ball out of the water.  

Edgbaston Reservoir levels are well down

When Dave got back from Jess’s longer walk later that morning, he said the patches of algae were bigger further along the canal.  They seemed to have moved down towards the centre over the course of the morning.

Although the weather remained overcast all day, it was very hot.  We had planned to spend the afternoon at the Birmingham City Art Gallery which is open again after being closed for refurbishments, but we were both unusually tired so we didn’t and just relaxed for the afternoon.  I did go for a stroll later on and took our photo from across the canal.

Once more the trip boats had been active during the day.  The party boat’s early cruise was for a 50^th birthday party and the later one was another noisy affair with the flashing disco lights.  The steerer, who we had seen walking her dog earlier during the day, stood impassively at the tiller with her dog sitting patiently beside her.

It was another quiet night apart from an idiot at about 2 am banging on boat roofs as he passed.