A Day of Contrasts

What an interesting day of cruising we’ve had today.

We began by leaving The Stourbridge Canal and climbing up the eight Delph Locks on The Dudley No 1 Canal.  As a result of all the rain we’ve had, cascading waterfalls were over-flowing the weirs that accompany each lock.  We haven’t seen anything like this elsewhere on the system.  I read that the stables between locks 2 & 3 have been refurbished and are now run as an information centre by the Birmingham Canal Navigation Society.  What a shame complete eejits have to scribble on every available surface!

  The same or similar eejits make honest, worthy citizens feel the need for this sort of thing too.

                   

                Why is it that when vast numbers of human beings live in close proximity to each other anti social behaviour increases?

Leaving Delph Locks we were very soon moored up over-looking a huge shopping complex called ‘Merry Hill’.  It was built on land once occupied by the Round Oak Steel Works.  We were amazed – you could even by a car in there and there was quite a selection to choose from!

A chap walking his dog told me that the beleaguered local men have re-named the centre ‘Merry Hell’ on account of the agony they suffer being dragged around all those shops by their wives and girlfriends!  John was having none of it!  We needed to go to two shops and two shops is where we went!

Leaving ‘Merry Hill’ we went through a superbly developed area called ‘The Waterfront’ – pubs, bars, nightclubs, hotels and restaurants.  All very classy.

           

From Blower’s Green Junction to Windmill End Junction on The Dudley No 2 Canal there is quite a rural feel.  It felt more like being on The Shroppie rather than on the outskirts of Britain’s 2nd largest city.  The moorings at Windmill End are set in a lovely public open space.  It’s hard to envisage that 100 years ago this area was known as ‘The Black Country’ and was full of collieries, claypits, furnaces, limekilns, iron works, chain-making factories, glass works, chimneys, slag heaps and smog!

In conclusion I would just like to express my deepest sympathy for all those poor people who have been so badly affected by the current floods.  What a nightmare to have to live through.  Just awful.