What a change in the weather today. Yesterday was so warm that we didn’t even re-light the stove, so it was the first night we’d not had it on. However today has been much more chilly and cloudy. We were expecting a visitor today, so after breakfast I made some oat biscuits.
Our visitor was Diane Kemp, who was one of my tutors when I did my broadcast journalism post-grad at what was then the University of Central England (now Birmingham City University). We kind of saw her in September 2023, but only waving from a window when we went past BCU’s new campus at Ashted Locks. We last saw her properly in 2017. She’s always had dogs so was keen to meet Macc, although he wasn’t always on his best behaviour! We had a lovely hour talking puppies, retirement, students, and other things, before she went to meet someone at New Street Station.
As it was a bit chilly today, we fancied something warm to supplement our lunch, so Adrian went to get some garlic dough balls from the cafe and pizza boat just along from us. He was saying how much quieter the towpath was today; the ice cream boat hasn’t even opened today.
This afternoon I went out for a walk, which took me under Black Sabbath Bridge and on past Gas Street Basin, as we won’t be going that way by boat this time.
There have been a few boats about, but quite a lot of the movement has been trip boats of various sorts.
Only a couple of boats have left the moorings, to be replaced by a couple more. We haven’t waited until this evening to relight the stove — it went on mid afternoon when a squally shower came through.
0 miles, 0 locks. (82 miles, 74 locks)