Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Where Was the Farmer?

There was just one short tunnel taking us under the railway line ...


... before we had left dereliction behind and returned to the hustle and bustle of city life.

But, we still had the 13 wonderfully named Farmer's Bridge locks to work through before we reached the true canal heart of the city at Gas Street Basin.

These locks are quite a favourite of ours as we always attract a crowd of gongoozlers, who are quite easy to impress with our boat handling and locking skills. They usually ask lots of questions which I enjoy answering, being the canal anorak that I am.


As you can see from this photo and the next one, going up this lock flight you really do rub shoulders with the city workers and get to see how the canal and city businesses co-exist alongside each other.


With 13 locks coming in quick succession and a crowd of onlookers to impress, there was no slacking for me and my crew. I was grateful to a canal engineer of earlier times who had thoughtfully built up and weighted the lock gate to make it easier to open.


It also made a good seat as well.

Lots of love, Eddie and crew xxx

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Eddie,

Did the farmers have canal or even Lock dogs to herd the boats?

If we had been in the offices or even if we had been (heaven forbid)gongoozlers we would have been very envious of you going up such and exciting waterway to Birmngham.

Lots of love Geo and Bris
xxxxx