Double 0 Life

 We decided that the lovely Diglis Basin had disadvantages that outweighed its advantages, in particular, lack of Mobile reception, and therefore lack of Internet access, and zero TV reception.  The Central Worcester location is gorgeous and very convenient, but now that we have a nice little car, we felt that we should move to Droitwich, 15 mins drive away, as it has it all!! We had been waiting for the perfect weather conditions, and when week after week no perfect time came along, one morning we decided to get up and go anyway.   It is a trip that can take either one or two days, but because of the shorter days, we allowed at 2 full days. We set off in a mood of excitement, but there were quite a few jobs to do first, like filling up with water, dumping some wee, and offloading our recycling.  We had enough supplies for 2 days, no problem. At the Locks, there were plenty of Gongoozlers, boats on the move being a rare sight at this time of year. We had been fi...

  We left Venice.... I mean Birmingham, refreshed and warmer after our comfortable city break there, and headed down towards King's Norton Junction.  We were now in familiar territory again, and very aware that after having done no locks for four or five days, we had 52 to do before arriving back at Worcester.  The city is flooded so there was no chance of going via the river.   Autumn has arrived.  The canals are quiet and there is an air of peace as we travel with no engine trouble, experienced crew and a luxury boat. One hazard of the Autumn leaves is that they keep getting caught in the bow and the weed hatch is troubled with Withey weed everywhere.  This required a bit of stopping and clearing, but nothing to difficult. We moored up outside Bourneville train station in order to visit the Cadbury chocolate factory.   This was a very disappointing choice. When we thought we had found the factory we were wrong.  This was the staff shop...

 After the rude, chilly dip, we took the Junction at Great Haywood and headed for Wolverhampton. nobody really looks forward this as it's not the best part of the country, but there were some pretty spots. Aquaducts are all over the place, and it's nearly always lovely, but with water going over water it makes it even more special. We continued uneventfully to the Autherley Junction, where we rejoined the Staffordshire/Worcs canal briefly before turning into the Birmingham main line via the Wolverhampton staircase.  We hadn't been looking forward to this and the weather had turned really cold.  We knew there were a lot of locks ahead so we moored overnight before turning off to rest before a big day of locks ahead. Already there were some pretty awful sights.  This less touristy area lets itself down badly and the rubbish is very noticeable in the water and surrounds.   There were 21 locks in a row in the first staircase, so we chose our clothes carefully a...