A pair of pussy's on the towpath

Being woken at a silly time in the morning is not something we expected. We were not best pleased when a loud engine roar broke the silence at 6.45am. Turned out to be the CRT bloke again on his quad bike. Not only did he have no respect for people asleep on the boats but he proceeded in spraying thick mud up the side of our nice shiny paintwork and all over the cratch cover. What I want to know is, how come he can zoom up and down the towpath on the quad bike, yet CRT give stiff penalties to those that ride motor bikes!!! Maybe we need to speak to some higher ranking CRT official.
So after getting up and washing the side of the boat, we did the final lock of the Tardibigge flight and set off toward Birmingham again. We thought we might as well do some of the less used canals around the BCN before heading back to Langley Mill. We were approaching Kings Norton Junction when we came across this branch lying right across the towpath. Did I miss a storm?? I cant believe it just broke off, so I wonder what made it come down.

 Having already taken this route on the way to Worcester I really didn't expect to see anything different. But of course now that we are traveling in a reverse direction, suddenly different scenes appear that we
hadn't  noticed before.

Crown meadow arm in Alvechurch. Seems unusual to see boom across the canal.

Stalactites on the roof of Wast Hill tunnel

View of the exit.

Once we arrived in Birmingham, the first thing to do was visit the facility block. The tap is oh sooooo slow and we outstayed our time limit. The sign stated that we were only allowed 30 mins on the bollards. 45 minutes later we were still fillingl so we gave up and decided to make do with what we had. The 48 hour moorings at Old Turn had a space big enough for us so we squeezed our boat in and, while Ian started sorting the ropes and tying them securely, a lady and gentleman walked past holding dog leads in their hand and walking, not dogs, but two long haired Balinese/Siamese cats

Balinese/long haired Siamese

So for all those getting excited by my heading, I'm very sorry to disappoint. It was just two very lovable cats!!