Thursday 2nd

Part of the picture-book account of The Booze Cruise.

We get woken by an unhappy British Waterways official. So, after a quick visit to Wolverhampton's town centre for supplies, we set off, passing the tired-looking industrial wasteland that lines the canalside.

The boat gets stuck in an awkward position, and while Ben gets to work freeing it, a nosy group of builders stand around pointing and laughing.

The journey is made worse by bizarre floating green junk that clogs up the propeller.

We reach Birmingham eventually...

...and moor by the boat facilities point while we fill the water tank.

We spend a lot of time looking for a space to park in the centre of town, but find none. So we end up parking in an ominously quiet spot. This causes arguments amongst the crew.

Arguments settled, we head out into Birmingham...

...where we admire...

...the sights.

The crew spends a long time trying to find the pub we're looking for, and when we finally find it we get thrown out for not having sufficient ID to prove our ages. So we head to another pub very close to where we'd left the boat.

We have a good night at the other pub, enjoy a meal, make a lot of noise and eventually head back to the boat. Ben tells me the tale of the Little Green Man before we try to get to sleep.