Rowkin Rovings Blog

Predicted to be 38c today!!! Plans for today are to seek out air conditioning and stay out of the heat.

Very few places are air conditioned and apart from the cinema and Karen’s hotel, we have not managed to find anywhere else.

It was very difficult to sleep in due to the heat and even though we were moored up with shade from the buildings, it was oppressive by 9.00am.

Fras went for a walk early on around the centre of the city where the canals are focused. The first canal to be built in the area was the Birmingham canal, which was construct from 1768 to 1772 under the supervision of James Brindley from what was then the edge of Birmingham.

More than 100 miles make up the Birmingham canal navigations.

As we have mentioned before, there are more canals in Birmingham than there are in Venice.

The only disappointing thing about the area is that there is no green space. We can see a number of empty blocks of land close by that could be utilised but guess they are too valuable to just put into park benches.

So our day consisted of us relaxing in our sweat box until midday when we went over and picked Karen up from her hotel but not before savouring the air-conditioning in the hotel foyer. We made our way back to the cinema we went to last night to see the movie The Railway Children Returns. It was heart warming, some would say soppy and predictable movie and probably too slow for children nowadays.

Following the movie, Di went for a much needed pedicure on her hooves whilst Fras and Karen filled in the time with making up a shopping list ready for our next few days

After a lovely dinner back at Karen’s hotel we headed out for our evening of culture. Not sure if you would call Some Mothers Do ‘ave ‘em culture but it was entertaining. The main actor was not Michael Crawford – unfortunately.

We did not realise that it was the premiere evening of the show and all the local press was in attendance. The other thing we did not realise was that the theatre was not air conditioned and with all the bodies stuffed in, the place was stifling.

Though it was 9.30pm when we got out of the theatre, it was still over 30c and also the dark bricks they use were still retaining the heat, it was not going to cool down any time soon. When we got back to the boat, cold showers were had and then we sat in the dark trying to cool down when we heard “splash” and then “splash” again. It transpired that two people who were under the effects of alcohol decided to jump into the canal to cool off. Problem was it was a lot colder than they realised which took their breath away so they appeared to panic but luckily made it to the edge of the canal. A further issue was that as the canals are not built for swimming in, so there are no egress points. It took the assistance of pedestrians to help them out of the canal. One does hope that they all went and had a thoroughly good shower after their impromptu swim. After that bit of excitement, it was a trial by fire into bed.