Most of the kids who live in Hebden Bridge, but attend Calder High School about 2 miles away, get the bus there. But these three look to have decided to walk it — and good for them, it was a very beautiful morning, and there’s no need to walk along the main road.
At this time of year, good weather needs to be used — there may not be a great deal more of it for a while. It was too nice an afternoon to be spent sat around indoors, so a walk along the canal was mandated. I have a number of pictures that follow this same general theme today.
My limited experience of vehicles like the ‘Sweet Basil’ (its name is just visible on one side of the prow) is that they are nice, peaceful ways to get around the place — but they take their time. And living on one for a week might be just about doable: any longer and I’d be, like, where’s the bath? Nevertheless downsizing has an obvious appeal, at some gut level.
On the Easter weekend, it’s a good idea to get out of Hebden Bridge — even if it’s only to travel a few miles along the canal. The sun was shining, there were no people…. this is what we want.
It is said that Birmingham has more canals than Venice, and it’s a believable stat once you start walking around the place.
The water is that of the Tame Valley Canal. Above, thunders the M6, doing its rounds just north of Birmingham. Whoever marked the crossing point of these two transport arteries with this piece of work was inspired. Someone else’s art, again, but worth sharing.
I don’t know whether the 19th century did outdoor seating and umbrellas in quite the same way as the Stubbings Wharf pub does in 2023, but otherwise this picture could well have been taken 150 years ago: man (with beard) waiting for nearby lock to fill, and trying to stop the boat floating away while he does so. It’s a slow way of life on the water, which I guess is why plenty of people like to live it.
My summer holiday has finally started, and being the type of person that I am, I went exploring, going to Dudley in the West Midlands largely because it was somewhere I had never been before, with not just one but two County Tops (report to follow). And it gave me the chance to walk 1.7 miles, more or less (2,776m according to the sign at the entrance) under ground, through the Netherton Tunnel, which accommodates a branch line of the huge Birmingham canal network, and was the last major canal tunnel ever built in Britain, opened in 1858.
This was taken as I approached the south entrance, which for me was the exit. A bit damp, but by no means an unpleasant experience, though the distant sound of many voices screaming that reverberated down the tunnel towards me for a few minutes — either a school sports day, or the tortured souls of Hell — was a little eerie.
Wagtails are so named for obvious reasons, and this one was wagging its tail so enthusiastically that it’s almost disappeared from the shot. Taken with a long zoom, in fairly gloomy conditions, next to the Aire & Calder Navigation in Brighouse.
The annual outcrop of Canada goslings is usually good for a pic, and so it proves again in 2023. This was one of a family of four — six if you count the watchful parents — who at the moment seem to have set up home on the canalside marina.
Being 42 