Victor Vectis

She did the same on our boat last year. Equally excellent paint job by John Sanderson in Dadford's Shed by Lock 12 on the Stourbridge. (And yes, I should have removed that fender!)

Mine too.

Yes. That's a problem with a boat called 'Red Wharf'.

I thought it was a girly button switch, starboard only. 😀

Which is....................?

Hmmmmm That looks like an organ. So...... Ma Pardoe's? ETA Just scrolled through the previous posts. I didn't cheat, honest!

I'll raise you Kingswood Basin at Lapworth since 2011. The only minor drawback being that we can't go very far without hitting locks, (lots of 'em if we head south down the GU!)

Looking at 'The Blue Book' (pages Wol 1 and Wol 2) Caponfield Furnaces were between Highfields Road and Dudley Street bridges on the Bradley Arm. It shows 4 arms off the canal on the towpath side and a 'proper' map (those familiar said Blue Book will understand) shows the canal swinging round to the right there. Edwin Butler Bayliss's work is a wonderful evocation of what the Black Country must have been like when it was living up to it's name.

Snap!

That's what I was going to say. And if The Swan failed (very unlikley) there is the Joules pub, a Titanic Brewery pub, or up past the station, the Lymestone brewery tap, The Borehole. (And there is a Spoons too) ETA I'm talking about Stone, not Penkridge.

Well said! Calcutt Top Lock a season or two ago, we were going up, a fatarse, sorry widebeam coming down. I said, perhaps a tad too loudly, 'Good Gawd. Its a fatarse'. Cue Mrs Fatarse, sorry, widebeam to the downhill end of the lock as we were rising, saying "You're only jealous 'cos you've only a scruffy narrowboat (the cheek of the woman!) and can't afford a nice £250,000 boat like we can"

My concern would be the 'sad lookng' (thank you NB 'Orleanna') houses that have sprung up by the junction since we were last there.

yeahbut.... What beer was available?

Given the state of the canals at pres they ain't doing a very good job. In future they will have to try harder!