Gas Street Basin, BCN

 A full moon at 0530 when we set off.  We arrived at the Aston bottom lock at 0745 and were finished at the top lock by 0930.  Then, on the the bottom of Farmer's lock at 0945 and found the pound full this time.  We got to the top at 1115 and were safely on the moorings by 1130 with the electic on and the washing machine going. 

A lovely short trip out, beautiful weather and great to be out on the cut again.

Now for a special Christmas card.  Marigold's new back doors on a birthday card!!!  Lucky Kim.

I matted the photo onto some silver glittered paper and then onto a white, square card blank.

Inside I matted a square of white card onto silver glitter card, then patterned paper and more glitter card.  I printed out the sentiment on the computer and matted that onto more patterned paper and spelt out Kim with peel-off letters.  Finally I added the Christmas roses.

Broad Bulk Bridge, Birmingham & Fazeley Canal

 We got back to the boatyard after a swim at the hotel and left after 10 o'clock.  We got water at Fazeley Junction and then set off up the Curdworth locks.  The sign on the lock gate said that the volunteer lock keeper is usually on duty on Tuesdays.  What day was it?  Monday.  S***!

After a very long day (6 hours!!!) we moored up within a stone's throw of Milnworth ready for the long slog up to Birmingham tomorrow.

An early attempt of colouring the embossing, but rubbing an ink pad over over the embossing folder before running the card through the embossing machine.  I think it worked.

The embossed panel was then matted onto gold card and then an even larger piece of yellow card.  Some yellow grossgrain ribbon was wrapped around this panel and a bow tied around it.

Three silk daffodils were then added to the bottom right hand corner.

Streethay Wharf, Coventry Canal

 Don't have a photo for today, so here is one my brother sent me.

We stopped off at Streethay Wharf as we are leaving the boat here for a couple of nights while we got to a wedding anniversary in Sutton Coldfield.

No sign of Qubie who works there, but Kathy arrived later in the day and moored on the opposite bank.

Here is a pretty decoupaged card.  The picture is foiled so it has a lovely shiny texture.

I used a blue card blank and matted the foiled picture onto blue and pink card before sticking it onto the blue card.

Fradley Junction - Coventry Canal

 I have noticed on this trip just how much of the towpaths have become overgrown.  There have been places where there is only just room for one boat to get between the reeds and trees on the off side and the reeds on the towpath.  Whatever happened to the veg pledge, and how am I supposed to get off the boat in an emergency?

We arranged to meet son-in-law and grandson for lunch in The Swan and waited for them for half an hour before we heard that he thought he was coming tomorrow!!   So no pub lunch.

Here is a 007 card.  A black card blank was used and the red backing paper stuck on, I then cut out the figure and stuck it onto the card with sticky fixers.

Hawkeyard, Trent & Mersey Canal

Managed to persuade David to hang about so that we could visit the farm shop, so we moored up at the junction and walked back to buy some goodies.  We stopped again at Rugeley and I did some more shoppingg and then moored up near Bridge 62 on a disused long term mooring. 

Here is a new baby congratulations card.  First you knit the little jacket on normal needles and then transfer them onto cocktail sticks, gluing beads onto one ends.

The "jacket" was then glued onto a blue oval and then onto die-cut ovals and finally onto a white card blank.

Tixal Wide, Staffs and Worcester Canal

 As usual, we left too early to arrive at Midland Chandlers after it opened, but we did arrive at the lock just as a lovely working boat was coming out of the lock, so we had at least one lock for us.

Around Stafford we came across a boat which had managed to get itself stuck in the rushes on the towpath side of the canal.  He refused our offer to tow him off, so we left him with his pole trying to free himself.

At the next lock we were caught up by a boat with four men on board, two of whom insisted on helping us with the locks, and did so for the rest of the day.  Thanks for the help.

And so to Tixal wide.  Lovely as usual.  We stopped and moored just before the wide itself as it was busy.

I set off to walk to the farm shop at the junction and saw that a fellow moorer in Gas Street, Kathy, was moored up just past the junction.  So I went to visit her and then she came back to our boat, so I never got to the shop.

Here is a box/card thingy.  It is a large card with a box containing, in this case, 4 tealight candles.

I made several of them for the floating market in Birmingham, but the weather was to damp to put them out, so I never sold any.

This is a view of the inside of the card showing the candle box.

An alternative to candles could be chocolates or even small toys.

Penkridge - Staffs & Worcester Canal

After a very quiet night we left at 0830 and proceeded down to Penkridge.  There didn't seem to be as many boats around around as yesterday and the visitor moorings in the centre of Penkridge were empty when we got there before lunch.

It's been a lovely day, warm and sunny and, hopefully, more to come.

When we lived in Cyprus we used to take trips down the "panhandle" which was very wild.  There were lots of wild cyclamen so when I see them now they always remind me of lovely, hot, sunny, Cyprus.

These were a foiled decoupage set and I mounted them onto an embossed panel of card with the edges smudged in pink ink.  This was then fixed to a pink card blank and a pink gingham ribbon was stuck beneath the flowers.

Looking at the photo I see that I did some fancy double embossing, though I can't remember doing it. 

Coven Heath - Staffs and Worcester Canal

 The Wolverhampton 21.  We set off at 0830 and had most of the locks for us - with the help of several boats coming up.

It is such a pretty flight, the grass is always neat and tidy and there are lots of flowers.  Not sure what these are, maybe escaped from a garden.

We reached the bottom 3 1/4 hours later, with only one trip down the weed hatch, and turned right into the Staff & Worcs and headed for the bit of piling after bridge 69 and slept all afternoon.

 I have been branching out from cards this summer, hoping to sell them at the Birmingham Floating Market.  But the weather was so bad I was hardly able to put them out for people to see.

Inside the card there are four tealights and the whole thing comes in a box.