Canal Tripping...

Well, here we are... I'm slightly at a loose end... I have been for a week or so, because I finished "The Count of Monte Cristo", and haven't found a satisfying book since... I've read The Times a lot, polished off a couple of my sister's Jacqueline Wilsons, read "A Breed of Heroes" by Alan Judd in parts of one afternoon, and am currently halfway through a double edition of "The Demon Headmaster" and sequel... Does anyone else remember watching that on TV? Was on CBBC when I was 8 or 9-ish, I think... With the Headmaster looking spookily like Jack Straw...

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Wife: "How was your day at the office dear? What do you think of the Foreign Secretary?"
Foreign Office worker: "The Foreign Secretary is a wonderful man and this is the best Ministry I've ever been in."

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Ahem... you probs didn't get that if you haven't seen the prog/read the book, so go HERE for an explanation.

Also: I'm currently watching "Easy Rider"... be jealous Podge m8 :P

THE CANAL TRIP

*** This has been put off so long that I probably won't remember much to write***

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, a convoy of starships set off for an outpost satellite on the edge of an old meteorite ring... Or, tbh, we set off for the boatyard. We amused ourselves on the way up by overtaking, undertaking and generally waving and making obscene gestures at the other car in our little convoy... which was fun :D

The actual boating itself was quite kewl... obviously everything was smaller than I remembered it from Yr7... We went through a tunnel the first afternoon which got the trio (Will T, Vicky and Jenny) screaming away happily on the front of the boat when they got dripped on... Next day, or maybe the one after, we were in the middle of Birmingham... Went to Cadbury World, then went shopping in Brummieville... Here me 'n' Will saw our first celeb of the week: Harvey Keitel, shopping with his family... Well, a guy of remarkable resemblance, with an American accent... If you want to get picky, find out if he has two kids of 5-16 (wasn't really looking at them, tbh...)

After that, boated on some more, saw Terry Pratchett cycling along the towpath near Wolverhampton... Also went down a triple lock staircase, as in 3 interlinked, not just in a row up a hill but actually opening one into the next... which was quite pr0! Plus the day we saw Terry, we also went through a lock with a cave next to it, hewn out of solid rock, in a long rectangle shape... about the size of my room but a bit longer, with a rock bench sticking out all around the edges... Which was very pr0, and reminded me of the Hobbit.

Ermmmmm... other than that, we stopped in Worcester on Friday night and went out to a chinese, which confirmed my theory that all chinese restaurants play Celine Dion (that one, the Boote, the one I went to in NZ at Xmas... Please confirm :D). The next day we went around "The Commandery", which is a large old townhouse, Tudorish I think, which Prince Rupert used as his headquarters during the siege + battle of Worcester during the Civil War. The last time I went around there I was 8... so that was nicely nostalgic... And I got prints of the Arrest warrant and Death warrant for Charles I... mainly cos they were only 50p each :D I might use them as oddball posters, I suppose!

One night along the way, Will was getting narked with Vicky and Jenny, so he poked the bottom of her cot (which was above his bed)... And he knocked it out of the slots, so Jenny collapsed on top of him... LOL... The last day we did something like 36 locks... all in one long ladder, about 50 - 100m apart... in shifts... it was joyous... we then moored up near the boatyard, right by a bridge, and me and Will went off to fetch the Polo to go home early... We got the car fine, then spent a hour driving around the village of Alvechurch, trying to find that bridge... We eventually ended up in approximately the right place, in a housing estate, but it was a dead end, so Will hopped out and asked a woman putting her babyseat into her car in her driveway for directions... As it turned out, the bridge was through a load more little backroads in the housing estate... Grrr... Totally unsigned... More grrr... Plus the only person to fall in all week was Ben, the dog :( But it was all made up for on the way back that evening, because for quite a while we followed a car with this number plate:

RX012NUB

W00t w00t! Super stuff... :D