We awoke to a bright, sunny day and it remained the same right through to the evening.
Before setting off, Mike and Jess walked a short distance to a Co-Op store, mainly for a paper but also they picked up a couple of reduced items: hot cross buns and Warburtons Thins. (The former were partially demolished with coffee and the latter disappeared at lunch time)
Back at the boat they took a quick look at the Tividale Quays Basin - well laid out complete with mooring rungs but totally devoid of any boats. No doubt there is a story behind this but perhaps it looked good on the developer's plans.
It was only a half hour cruise to the Dudley Canal Museum where we initially tied up at the service point and completed all of the usual. We then moved back a boat length to a 48 hour mooring. Fortunately this remained available as there were three boats that arrived almost immediately after us, two hire boats together which took up all of the space on the opposite side. The third was looking for room when a boat further on left the only other space at this end of the canal. Of course, there were plenty of spaces just the other side of the bridge.
Eventually we set off to explore the Black Country Living Museum, an amazing collection of old buildings which have been transported here from where they originally were built, all within a few miles of the museum. We were here last spring, before the new Dudley Canal Trust building had opened and the swing bridge was still being built. Whilst Mike finished off the servicing and re-mooring, Christine and Alice went along to the centre and booked tickets for the final tunnel trip this afternoon at 4 o'clock.
Off then to the main museum - there is more than enough to fill a whole day so we had to be selective. It was very much busier than when we last came (that was a cold day during school term time!) As a result we missed out those things that had a long queue but still found more than we had time to see.
We walked up to the main entrance to buy our tickets (only later spotting that we could have avoided that!) but we began by taking a look at a collection of really old cars, including this two seater from 1903. The rear two seats were a later 'improvement'.
Our next stop was at the education centre where Easter Crafts were available. Jess coloured and stuck together an Easter Bunny whilst Alice constructed an egg figure, carefully following the sheet of instructions.
Much of the museum comprises ordinary working class homes, some dating back to the mid nineteenth century but most set out as they might have looked in the 1930's. The first we looked at (actually brought forward to war time) was one of an experiment in cheaper housing built from cast iron with a concrete layer added outside later. Unfortunately it was both expensive and liable to rust. Most of the buildings have people, dressed in period costume, describing the lives of the people who lived there. This gentleman said quite a bit about how restricted food was during rationing.
Here is another house, with the room where all the domestic chores were carried out.
This single storey building was originally a toll house on a turnpike road, being sold later for a modest family home.
Not only houses, but shops as well. This one was originally in an area where there were no others and so developed as a very general store, food, household goods and clothes to mention some of the range on the shelves. This 'shopkeeper' explained about the types of shoe most poor children wore - the main sole made from wood but the toes and heels tipped with metal.
This lady is demonstrating how to make spills from yesterday's papers - Christine looks on knowingly as she regularly makes paper sticks instead!
Whilst Christine and Alice walked back to the craft place to collect the earlier work via the boat dock and came back down on a tram, Mike and Jess went to the old cinema where they watched a 1920's silent film. Just as well it was not a full length feature film as the seats were hardly plush
Christine and Alice went to look around the separate Tunnel Museum whilst Mike and Jess watched a couple of industrial displays. At one time, blacksmiths were small family businesses and often specialised in certain types of work. In the first case they saw how a rose-headed nail is made. The shape of the head is designed to ensure that when in place it does not catch and cut passing fingers.
The other smithy specialised in chain making and we saw one link being added. This took several minutes but in the days when this was someone's way of living they had to make sixty links of medium chain every hour
Very heavy chains were needed for ships and special hammers that took either three or five men to wield would be used.
Time now to meet up for the boat trip. We had seen fully laden boats setting off and returning from earlier trips so it was a bit of a surprise to discover that we were they only people booked on this last trip. Before boarding the special boats we had to don hard hats.
Our photography underground was not very competent but at least we did catch the highlight of Mike and Alice trying their feet at legging the boat through a narrow part of the tunnel.
And so the long (50m!) walk back to the boat or the night.
1.3 Miles - 0 Locks
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