Monday 1st May

Sailed at 06:55 this morning, up the Knowle Locks and through Solihull:
it being deemed unsafe to be caught in Birmingham overnight!!!

Left the Grand Union at Bordesley Junction and headed north through Brum
to "Spaghetti Junction" then north east up the Birmingham and Fazeley canal.

The locks along this stretch are narrow (single) ones, requiring more care
to enter - I was caught by a rather sharp bend before one and bent the bow
slightly in my attempt to drive the boat too far onto the towpath!

A few more miles further saw us coming through Curdworth Tunnel (57 yards!)
after which we were held up by dredging operations conducted by an amazing
machine called a "walking dredger" that looked like something from Starwars.


Moored up at a canalside pub in Bodymoor Heath where we found that the
M&B bitter was offset by the landlady's willingness to re-charge the GSM phone
used for the SLIP link to keep this system "on-line"!

After a "brown and mild" phase the evening ended with pints of "Caffreys".