Still moored in Birmingham,

Friday 8th August.

Keith and I got rudely awoken from our sweet slumber at around 4.30am, by drunken youths passing the boat. I couldn’t possibly repeat what they were shouting about, it was way too rude. The problem with being woken up like that is it is so hard to go back to sleep again, so both of us dozed until it was time to get up. When I opened the galley window, it was drizzling heavily. It was my fault I put a skirt on for the first time in ages ha ha.
The only thing planned for today was to turn Hadar around, so she would be pointing in the right direction for the BCN Explorer Cruise on Wednesday. This was done with ease; I stayed at the mooring, whilst Keith took Hadar down to Gas Street and turned her. Having moored back up again, Keith did all the greasing of the grease nipples, whilst I pottered about in the galley. Another boat for the BCN Cruise arrived opposite us. N.B Gerald No13 is an old BCN boat and when I say old I mean old, she is 111 years old, but does not look her age. Gerald No13 is owned by Roy. We introduced ourselves with the usual boaters natter. Roy has done the BCN Cruise before so he was able to tell us what we were in for. We are really looking forward to the whole event.
Lunchtime and the sun was out yayyyyyyy. Over the past few days we have noticed the BW boat Aquarius cruising up and down the canal, with a small skip in her hold. Aquarius we have learnt is the equivalent to the Bridge Water Canal Water Womble. She cruises up and down the canal around Gas Street Basin and the Mail Box collecting rubbish from boaters and out of the water. No wonder the canal is so rubbish free. It seems she does this three times a day, keeping everything spick and span.

Saturday 9th August.

Someone remind me this is August. Because today it feels more like October. Even Roy opposite us has lit his fire. When we woke up it did not seem to bad. We wanted to walk a mile into the city to get a food shop done at the Tesco Metro. So having had breakfast and Paddy walked, we donned our rucksacks and set off. The weather at this point was not to bad, there was drizzle in the air and the wind was getting up. Having arrived in New Street, which was pretty quiet for a Saturday morning, we got our shopping done. On exiting the Tesco Metro, the weather was taking a turn for the worst, we would get a soaking on the way back to Hadar. Back onboard I put the shopping away and made us both a coffee, whilst we dried out. It is not a day for being out and about if you hate the wind and rain thats certain, but there are plenty of boaters on the move. We have hunkered down and put the TV on to watch the Olympics, we have no plans on going anywhere for the rest of the day.