Sleepless in Birmingham

I have always had an inbuilt dislike of Birmingham, even though my mother was a Brummie and proud of it.I loved and love her to bits, a lovelier lady would be impossible to find, but I still dislike Birmingham.  Against our will and the advice of many locals we are moored in the middle of Birmingham, having run out of daylight negotiating the umpteen locks taking us through the city centre.We avoided the yobbo and alcoholic sections, but are perilously close to the A38(M) which never sleeps.The city centre canal locks are all fitted with anti-vandal locks, which reinforces the image of lawlessness already achieved by vandalism and endless graffiti, badly spelt. Around midnight the inevitable happened. A group of teenage girls noisily released our moorings, but Lynne had heard them and we were able to re-engage with land fairly quickly. It seems the girl yobs in Birmingham do not carry knives as none of our ropes were cut, fortunately

We are now on the Birmingham and Fazeley canal heading for Fazeley Junction on our way home, and it's raining. A fitting end to our Birmingham stay.

We moored for breakfast once we completed the 11 Aston locks, but still in pouring rain. A local man told us we could celebrate escaping Birmingham once we caught sight of "spaghetti junction", the infamous aerial motorway knot. I found nothing of note for a photo but below is our bedroom window view this morning. The painting went on for hundreds of yards, which says it all.