Tamworth – a very under-rated town

Although we forgot to take a photo of Joy and Bruce last night, luckily we met up with Joy this morning walking her gorgeous dog along the towpath ...

Joy & 'Bertie' met us on the towpath to say goodbye

Our third day in Tamworth and what a marvellous place this is! Growing up in Sutton Coldfield, people there looked down their noses at Tamworth but we've found that it’s a great place (http://www.tamworth.govt.uk/). Historically called ‘Tomtun', Tamworth is an original Saxon settlement, placed at the confluence of the rivers Tame and Anker, and was the capital of Mercia. King Offa, of Offa’s Dyke fame, built his palace here and also founded a mint. The three wheeler Robin Reliant car was made here until the factory closed in 1998, and Tamworth is mentioned in Shakespeare’s Richard II (Act V, Scene II, line 15 if anyone wants to check it out!). Lots of other things far too numerous to mention about Tamworth, but here's a couple:

It's the place where the 'Tamworth Sandyback Pig' comes from. There's a neat story about two such pigs that escaped from an abattoir in 1998 and went ‘on the run’! They were given the nicknames ‘Butch Cassidy’ and ‘The Sundance Pig’. The story appeared in the British national press. The Daily Mail purchased the escapees, reprieving them from slaughter, and they lived out their lives in an animal sanctuary. In 2004 the BBC dramatised the story in a film called ‘The Legend of the Tamworth Two’. Bless them, I do love pigs and I enjoyed that story years ago. Only problem is that it doesn’t stop me eating bacon and pork chops without a thought for the poor pig!

Today we found a pub with my mum and dad and they were doing meals for £1! Can you imagine that, how do they stay in business?! My dad had ham, egg and chips, Barry a ham toasted sandwich & chips – me and my mum splashed out and had a ploughman’s lunch for £2.50. The only problem is none of is sure of the name of the place, think it's the "Starcross Pub" in Church Street. A very nice beer garden in the rear with some extremely friendly, down-to-earth folks.

Market Day in Tamworth

We then visited Tamworth Castle, and what a treat it was. I recall going there a couple of times years ago when my girls were young and it was good then. Well now it’s absolutely fabulous! It won fourth place in the UKTV History Poll recently – the only castle to feature in the top ten of 'Britain’s Best Historic Sites' voted for by the British public; and rightly so. The 'Friends of Tamworth Castle' should be very proud of what they've achieved (my mum and dad were members of this some years ago before they moved to Worcestershire).

It's well maintained, with just enough colourful information boards scattered around, period furniture, a number of little ‘dressing up’ places along the way (how I love to do that!!), and something Barry and I adored was that they had notices strategically placed which said ‘Please Touch’—how many historic places have that—they usually just have an infinite number saying ‘Please do NOT touch’. Very refreshing to see. And a huge bonus is that they actually seem to like visitors! The staff were really friendly and courteous, in fact we just can’t praise the place highly enough. If you're in the area go to the castle, you won't be dissapointed. http://www.tamworthcastle.co.uk/

The imposing Tamworth Castle


Where I keep her when not in the kitchen

The gallant knight

Sandra's mum & dad - playing with the children's bricks while Barry & Sandra play dress up!

Lady Walsh

The Banqueting Hall - the richer you were, the higher up the table you sat

Typical meal - meat, meat and more meat

View from the castle windows to St Editha's Church


Well-maintained 'Tower Blocks'

Tamworth skyline


The Town Hall


Lord Walsh and his daughter


Castle door with crumbly 'Coat of Arms'






Madame Pompodore I presume?!





A stuffed animal in one of the rooms - does anyone know what it is???



An 'armless knight



The great hall



Barry is locked up after yet more silly jokes ...


Amazingly well-preserved leaded windows


Exhausted after an afternoon at the castle

Herringbone wall outside the castle

More beautiful windows

Mum and dad then came back to the boat with us, had a drink at The Anchor Inn over the bridge at Glascote (another friendly and lovely place in Tamworth, it’s full of them!), and we went for a little drive down the canal while I cooked some tea. I'm so lucky to have such wonderful parents, and it’s great to be able to catch up and spend lots of quality time with them while we’re here in England.

The colourful flowers in the castle park grounds

Popeye the sailor man and Captain Donald

Safely moored and waiting for dinner

Unfortunately, we had such a good day that we didn’t get to the paint shop, though we'd been told by Joy that they closed at lunchtime so it would've been impossible to get there anyway. So we still have that to accomplish somehow! Ah well, we’re exactly half way through our trip today so with a bit of luck we still have enough time to get it sorted …

A bit under the weather ...

Friday 3 July
Another Day of rising late! We’re wondering if there is a leak of gas or something on the boat, we didn’t get up until 10 ‘o clock again, most unlike us. Ah well, it’s a hard life this boating!

The weather had a bit of a change with pelting rain until early this afternoon. Barry felt a bit out of sorts today as well, so I caught the bus into Sutton to visit the pub where I've arranged my 50th party and where we'll now have our English evening wedding reception. Barry’s had a day off photography – he must be unwell bless him.

The Station Public House, Sutton Coldfield

This evening we met up with the couple who have a mooring at the bottom of their garden (friends of a friend - Bruce and Joy), where we may moor our boat up if we decide to keep it to come back again next year. They came onto the boat and Barry picked Bruce’s brain about boat DIY, then we were invited to their’s for a curry – and what a wonderful feast they provided! We all sat till the early hours putting the world to right, a lovely evening.

My mum and dad are coming to see us tomorrow and are taking us out for lunch! We are so lucky to be spoilt by all these people! We hope they'll drive us to Aldridge where we can buy some paint that 'll not be as extortionately expensive as the Chandelry’s charge. Barry got his tips on boat painting from Bruce so we may be getting there at last!

DIY delayed ...

Another swelteringly hot day, but we’re definitely not complaining unlike many English people who it seems just can’t be happy unless they're moaning about the weather; be it too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry!! I think it’s just something that's in-bred into us Brits for some reason. Barry didn’t get time to put all of the photos on from yesterday, so here they are:

The first of 11 locks for the day. Too hot for locks

Lovely looking canal side home

A thermometer attached to a wooden bollard by the lock. Sure it got hotter after this

Sandra helping some guy who told me he'd been chatting her up

Oh for a bit of shade!

Lock keeper's cottage
Meredale Hall on the hill at Atherstone. This privately owned 19th century mock tudor mansion sits on a steep ridge to the west of the canal
http://merevale.com/

The butty part of a pair of working boats. They'll be 100years old in August

Lovely calm and warm evening. On the way to the pub

We saw these unusal lights in the sky from the pub. Turned out it was the moon shining through small holes in the cloud cover.

Barry & Gary. Look like a couple of convicts.

Sandra and her godson Mikey with the mooring pin!

Maggie & Gary, Sandra & Mikey

On the way home after a few drinks

We moved just a little way up the canal to Glascote todayas we wanted to walk into Tamworth to have a look around and also to fill up with water. Barry's waiting to chat to someone ‘in the know’ about how to begin the narrowboat painting experience without going too far and losing too much precious time. We are arranging to meet up with a knowledgable person tomorrow, then hopefully once we’ve got all the tools and paint we can make a start and then continue on our journeys and do a bit each day for a while. Otherwise we’ll never get up north and back down again by the end of September!

Another Scorcher. Lunch by the towpath in the shade

Walked into Tamworth for a look around. Landscaped garden by the castle

Tamworth Castle dating from the 12th century, sitting in themiddle of town
http://www.castleuk.net/castle_lists_midlands/139/tamworthcastle.htm

Statue of Sir Robert Peel. Founder of the police force

http://www.thepeelsociety.org.uk/

We're apparently half way through the 6 months in 3 days time (Barry's counted the days!), doesn’t time fly too quickly when you’re having heaps of fun …

Mikey and the mooring pin

Some photos from my bike ride on Tuesday morning - before the puncture ...

Hartshill Quarry and one of the mountains created from the spoil

Hartshill bush walk on reclaimed spoil land

Foxgloves

More of the bush WALK (which I rode through on the bike - naughty!)

Looking south across Hartshill

The entranceway to the local church

A view across the valley to the north

One of the 200kph Virgin Trains whizzing past

Houses perched precariously close to the edge of Judkins Quarry

It's a very long way to the bottom

Mount Judd built with spoil from the old Judkins Quarry

Barry made it back to the boat without problem having had a good catch up with Fred in Birmingham, and I had a good girlie chat night with Diane.

Didn't look too bad here, though we'd only had two pints at this stage!

Wandered round Gas Street Basin and Brindley Place areas. Amazing how busy it was on a Tuesday night - a very warm evening

We left our mooring at Atherstone after lunch, and managed the eleven locks between us on an extremely hot and sunny day – at one point the thermometer on the lock showed 34°c! Barry said that the trains had been a bit delayed this morning because the tracks were too hot so they had to slow down to stay on. Unfortunately in Gisborne, our home town, they're having a bad winter and it isn’t only raining heavily causing flooding, but bizarrely a number of buildings in the High Street burnt down a couple of nights ago (http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/).

We were joined by friends again this evening; Maggie, Gary and my godson Mikey. Mikey got the chance to drive the boat and did a great job – Maggie and I sat at the front and only got concerned a couple of times when we veered towards the bushes, but we suspected that it was intentional! We moored up at Alvecote Marina and discovered that I‘d left the mooring pin in the last place we stopped. Bless Mikey, he ran all the way back to retrieve it for us.

Gary & Mikey with a concerned Captain worried about his job!

We hope over the next couple of days to meet with the people who may moor our boat for us at the bottom of their garden, when we return to NZ in October, and they will advise us on the best place to buy some boat paint from in the area. We plan to get a bit of painting above the water line done over the next week or so before we move north, she’s getting a little rusty and peeling in places which isn’t a good look!

One of the staple industries in Athersone was felt hats. Sadly, but understandably, gone out of business

British Waterways Yard at Atherstone

Another victim of a bygone era - 'The Barge & Bridge' Pub - closed down

Ambled along to Atherstone

Barry's so naughty!!! Lol! What's been happening lately is that I write the blog on and off during the day as he's taking his photos. Then in the evening, if we have internet coverage, he’ll do whatever he does with his shots and uploads the ones he wants on. At the beginning of our journeys on the canals I would then re-look at the day’s entry, edit it and add in the captions to the pictures. Silly me – now I let him do the captions as most days he’s up until the wee small hours doing his thing and getting it all sorted – it's a bit of a nightmare getting everything to go where we want it to and can take ages. We’re not sure if we’re just sad spending so much time on it, but it gives us some really special memories of our time here as well as informing our family, friends and anyone else who’s logged on what we are up to.

So this morning when my daughter texted and made a comment about the 'dumplings' photo I thought she was being silly – 'till I realised he'd actually put that on as a caption – he’s just too cheeky! Ah well, it’s all in good fun. I never know until the next day what he’s put on the daft bugger!

Today he went for a long bike ride around Hartshill and got a puncture, luckily it was towards the end of his adventure so he didn’t have to walk with the bike for too long. We didn't travel far on the boat today as we needed to get supplies from the nearest town, which was Atherstone.

He’s trying to learn some English ‘ways’ of speaking and his latest is the saying ‘y’alright?” He can’t quite get it and has found it difficult to understand why people don’t say “Are you alright?” And he finds it a challenge not to answer back – “Well actually, now you ask, no I’m not. I’ve a bit of a bad back and my feet are starting to throb because I’ve been on the bike and then standing driving the boat all day. How about you?” He also can’t help but use an inflection at the end of the rhetorical question, rather than the British way of saying it and the tone of voice lowering! Most kiwi sentences end with a question mark for some reason; it’s just the way it is. Anyway, he’s practicing on everyone now, so watch out if we come into contact with you!

We’ve heard that the weather in Gisborne is terrible, very wet and flooding with schools shutting and homes being evacuated. So we’re hoping our little house is OK and that our belongings stored under the house aren’t now under water!!

We had a call today from a friend of Barry’s, Fred, who lived in Gisborne fro a while many years ago and now normally lives in Sheffield but is in Birmingham for a conference. So Barry's caught the train from just up the road of our mooring in Atherstone, to go and see him and he'll stay there the night (watch out Birmingham!). Meanwhile my friend from Nuneaton, Diane who I worked with when I had a job with the Department of Health in England doing midwfery recruitment and retention, is coming to dinner on the boat. So we both get a night to catch up with friends which is very cool.

No photo’s tonight though, Barry will put today’s ones on tomorrow morning, as long as he finds his way back to the boat!!