Sunday saw us up early to
drive down to Reading to pick up my youngest two, Jake and Polly, as we were off
to Southampton to see them play Everton.
As, is always the case, when Polly goes to see them, they won - she has
yet to see them lose so is obviously our lucky mascot considering how badly
they have performed this season. In fact
they ended up thrashing Everton so we had a thoroughly good, if long Sunday.
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The four of us at the
football match
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In case you thought we
were cruel and left Buddy on the boat all day, we didn’t: we left him at Lauren
and Lewis’s in Reading. They had friends
up for the weekend who had a yellow Labrador so Buddy was in his element all day.
It’s always amazing how
the recycling builds up, so on Monday I researched where the nearest recycling
centre was and found that there were recycling bins in the public car park in
Alvechurch. For our first walk of the
day we set off for the car park only to find that the bins had been
removed. I popped into the greengrocers
to get a lettuce and the lady told me that they had only recently been removed
but why didn’t I just use peoples' green bins on my walk back to the boat. I didn’t really feel I could do that so went
to the local boatyard but they wouldn’t take it – they only recycle items left
by their hire boaters. So, it was back
to the boat fully laden still. I was probably slightly
grumpy as it had started raining and I hadn’t expected to walk quite so far
with so much recycling ☹
In the evening we went
over to Stratford to play bridge so we stopped off at Sainsbury’s on the way to
get rid of the recycling.
Moored next to the new
marina being built here at Alvechurch reminds us of when we were moored on Mike and Lesley’s
mooring over the summer in Cropredy.
They were in the process of having a new house built on their mooring so,
on weekdays, we often watched the mechanical digger at work.
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Reminding us of the few
weeks spent at Cropredy in the summer
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On Tuesday, we walked
south on the canal towards Tardebigge and had a look at Cobley aqueduct on the way. This aqueduct has always fascinated me as it
looks like it crosses a dry river bed but it is very unusual to have dry river
beds in this part of the country.
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Cobley aqueduct from the ‘river
bed’
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Upon investigating further
I have found that the river bed is actually one of the old saltways from Droitwich. Many of these were built to transport salt to
local villages and several roads in the area have stretches that are still
called Saltway. The track must still
have been in use when the canal was built otherwise the aqueduct wouldn’t have
been deemed necessary.
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Part of the Droitwich-Alvechurch
saltway which, apparently, is mentioned in the Domesday book
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Following the old path up
Cobley Hill gave us some wonderful views across the open countryside and we
also came across some meadowland that, judging by the state of the molehills, hadn’t
been cultivated for a long time. This is
always a refreshing sight to see as it often means it will be good for butterflies
etc.
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Old molehills
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Its only just over a
fortnight until Shirley lift bridge is due to reopen, so over the next few days
I will probably start thinking about turning around and making our way back to
Lapworth for the last part of the year.
We won’t be able
to get into the centre of Lapworth until the 16th December as the
locks are closed until then but in the week between the bridge opening and the
locks opening we will probably moor at the top of the Lapworth flight or in Hockley
Heath. It will make Karen happier about her journey to work as she will be able to go cross country rather than use the motorways.
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