Birmingham again, but that's good.

Hello again Reader, here we are again on WaL.  This weekend The Boat Sharers are back onboard with us.  
Although have you heard Reader?  The Boat Sharers are probably on their last share holiday, no we haven't banned them but they have become Boat Owner's in purchasing the first owned boat by Joe and Lesley NB Caxton  HERE.  

A quick recap if you are lost.  Joe and Lesley had NB Caxton built, they sold it and had NB Yarwood built,   HERE  
We all went across The Wash together back in 2015, you can read all about that there too.  

So in the intervening years Caxton had two further owners, Elaine and Paul   HERE    and later on George and Sue, now over the winter Caxton came onto the market again and was brought by our own Boat Sharers Amanda & David.  

Kindly Joe and Lesley who have been boat-less for a couple of years now moved Caxton (Their old boat) for Amanda and David to its new mooring as they were working.  

During their fortnight aboard it rekindled their love of boating and guess what?  They have brought another boat for extended cruising this time not living aboard.  Now Lesley was one of the first blogs we all read, so knowledgable and she writes so well and I am delighted to tell you she is BACK!!!!!

HERE

Amanda and David are planning to be onboard later and she is thinking she will keep a blog too.
Got all that?


Back to this weekend.  It's David Lewis's 60th Birthday and he is celebrating by coming Boating.  It's been planned a while but we nearly came unstuck when David and I were planning to get up early on the Friday to drive back to Alvechurch from home and then heard that the Boat Sharers were driving across from darkest Norfolk on Thursday evening.....  could have been awkward.

So we all arrived miraculously  within ten minutes of each other and staggered along the now muddy tow path with food shopping, bedding, clothing, toolbox and hate to say it a lot of wine.

So the plan had been Reader after we had enjoyed ourselves in Birmingham (and seeing their son Max) we were going to utilise the mad locking pair and go down the Tardebigge Flight, that should slow them down a bit.  

But as all UK residents will know this fortnight the UK has had a bit of a monsoon..... on the drive up David announced that maybe we should look at the River Severn levels....duh, the River Severn has the catchment area of all of wet Wales....  

You might have though two intelligent people might of thought to have looked before, but there again where are two intelligent people when you need them.  

The chart online showed the levels rising, actually risen again when he looked again 30mins later!   Gulp so no question of  WaL going out, come to that any boat.

Once onboard my first priority is to make the bed up, David is the only one allowed to fill the fridge, he's not keen even on me fetching anything out of it except the milk off the door for coffee.  
Reader this behaviour only started on his retirement from working and on his retirement I also retired from fridge management.

The next morning we whizzed off to meet Marilyn and David from NB Waka Huia, they are holed up in the marina at Alevchurch awaiting medical care for David   HERE   Marilyn and I both blog, follow each other's blog and even though  both  boats been at Debdale Marina for some years over winter, we haven't met.  
Well it was as if we were all old friends and I think we all clicked together and had a great deal to laugh about in common toilets included.

We munched on Marilyn's somewhat famous cheese scones and she has promised the recipe which with her permission I will post as they were delicious.

So after an extended visit we departed and wished them well for David's upcoming procedure.

Back onboard WaL, we reversed and winded (Turned around) to retrace our steps back into the city centre for the night.  They called Max their son, my godson, but he was out of town)  so after about 2.5 to 3 hrs of cruising, all of us getting wet and drizzled on at one point, we jumped onto the first mooring we could  in the centre of town.  

After warming up a bit inside we visited the Gin Bar right opposite Gas Street Basin and then we had a tasty supper in The Real Hamburger Company in Brindley Place.

We moored outside here, strangely enough we didn't visit!

But we did go in here, the white door on the right, not too promising but we liked it very much

 We took advantage of a lull in the rain and strolled around the centre of town after supper.  I pointed out the planting that CART have undertaken in the centre of town, all benefitting insects particularly and if you watched the three weeks of Spring Watch you will know that insect levels are dramatically falling, we all need to plant insect favourite plants

HERE  so google it, we are in a very serious situation and then plant a Honeysuckle bush or three.

Fruit trees and plants

Flowers in bloom

Wild flower meadow, surprisingly these wild flowers need an bit of management.

I'd be proud of this boarder in my own garden.

No don't look at the graffiti, look at the trees.

And further along out of the centre too.

I actually took those photos the following day as we cruised by as it was a bit dark by then.

A good night's sleep was had by some of the crew, I joined Amanda in having a restless night, I think they are catching.