From Stourbridge Canal Trust to Wightwick - 13 1/2 miles, 19 locks. 11.30am to 7.30pm, or thereabouts. I wanted to find out more about the Stourbridge Canal Trust, but Saturday's clearly a bad day for this.
'Bosun' Richard Smith stayed overnight with Christine and me, and helped us up to Rocky Lock, before offloading his Muddy Fox around 2pm and cycling back to his Morgan at Stourbridge.
At Stourton Junction, where the Stourbridge Canal meets the Staffs & Worcs, I was surprised/amazed/amused to meet Waterscape.com, the official boat of - well, Waterscape.com. I was so startled that I didn't notice (when I released the waters from the lock above) that Waterscape.com was blown all over the cut by Granny's lockful. A rare occasion when one gets a chance to push BW about!
Turns out that Waterscape this weekend was being taken out by Eliza Botham, the local BW Glos waterways manager. I don't know who her passengers were, but I noticed that everyone aboard - man, woman, children - was wearing the now-standard orange 'floatation' safety collar. I can't help but find this a sinister development. When towpath litter collectors are required to wear them on pain of dismissal, and even people on a pleasure jaunt, can compulsion for ordinary boaters be that far behind?
I know how embarrassing it looks for the local BW manager to lose control of her boat, and I don't think it was her fault on this occasion.
Richard's a 'Mog' enthusiast, and claims squatters' rights to the term on behalf of all his fellow-Morgan lovers. He didn't take too kindly to my co-opting the term to describe the Miserable Old Gits beloved of local newspapers. "You can't use that term unless you are talking about Morgans!", he didn't (quite) say.
Incidentally, when I was voluble in favour of Michael Pearson's Me, My Morgan & The Midlands (where Pearson gets a 'Mog' for his 50th birthday and goes on a series of day-trip searches for the Male Menopause Middle England), Richard was wary of the central conceit of that book. Owning a Morgan is clearly a wonderful business; don't take it too lightly!
At The Bratch we encountered the only full-time lockkeeper on the Staffs & Worcs Canal. He was good enough not to glower too hard at me when I accidentally nudged the bottom gate of The Bratch, which is perhaps the only lock flight on the canals to bear a single-word name (plus the definite article). We don't talk of 'The Tardebigge' or 'The Hatton' or 'The Foxton', do we?
We pulled up for the night at Wightwick, where I had a towpath chat with a couple from Newcastle who'd just hired a canalboat for the severalth time. I really enjoy meeting people who hire narrowboats regularly. They were off for dinner at The Mermaid, the local pub, and Christine and I followed eventually but we didn't see them there. We were too busy arguing about something or other, I can't remember what, but it might have been important. The Mermaid is an OK place to eat, although its main credit seems to be that it won a 'Pubs In Bloom' competition last year.
We finished the night with a stroll up the hill to Wightwick Manor, but National Trust properties don't appear to do late-night openings. Not like the V&A, for example. The only way you'll get to see Wightwick at night is via the 24-hour museum.
Walking back down the hill, though, I got to take a picture of moorings at Wightwick at midnight.
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