My name is Michael Caine

Well actually it's Michael Cull - Micky to his mates - and a bona fide, diamond geezer with a Cockney sparkle in his eye and a line of London patter that would fit right in with Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins and Ray Winstone.
We met Micky when he was trying to moor up next to us at the bottom of Tardebigge and a fisherman was giving him "a right load of larynx". Micky's big tug ("71 and a half feet - I like to get me money's wurf!) wanted to get into a slot occupied by an angler with one of those gigantic carp rods who started f-ing and blinding at him. "I ain't talking to you if you're using language like that," said Micky but that didn't stop the ranting.
"I pay £28 f-ing pounds a year to fish here. Go and moor somewhere else." Finally, with all the boaters and all the occupants of the pub garden looking at him he gave up and settled back to his fishing, and Micky and his Missus moored.
"He ain't a proper angler sat on a mooring by a bridge. A proper angler walks into the middle of nowhere. If I see someone fishing by a bridge I don't bovver to slow down for them."
Anyway that's how we met Micky Cull, a larger than life Character. "I've been on boats 38 years," he told us. "I started on the river boats at Windsor when I was 13 - none of that nonsense abaht boatmasters then. I took the punters aht and gave 'em all the spiel too."
"We lived one boats and then I thought I'll 'ave a try at building one so I did; someone asked me to build them one so I did and carried on for abaht eight years. My mate come up with a slogan 'Get a quality 'ull from Michael Cull.' Nice eh?"
Micky's been there, done it, knows everyone and has a tale to tell about them. Trouble is that most of them aren't repeatable even in a blog. Look out for him and his big red and black tug. "It don't 'ave the name on it. There's no rule says you 'ave to and I don't want no anglers after me do I"

The summit conquered

Nearly there; the view from the reservoir with eight locks to go
A quick stop for r & r on a well placed bench
Going up - only 15 to go

We reached the summit of our own personal Everest at 6.15 last night when we exited the top lock of the Tardebigge flight - exactly three and a half hours after we entered the bottom lock.
To be honest it wasn't as bad as we feared - but then again everything was in our favour. It was a pleasant, sunny afternoon for starters and every single lock was set our way - all we had to do was push the bottom doors open and go in.
Remarkably, the whole flight was virtually deserted: we met the Mikron Theatre narrowboat leaving the bottom lock, another boat leaving lock 2 and another coming down at about lock 10. After that, nothing. And yet, amazingly, the locks which must have been empty for up to a couple of hours hadn't leaked themselves tight shut, which says something for the condition of the flight. Sure, the top paddles were very heavy; one of the few times I've wished for a ratchet windlass to speed things up. But you can't have everything.
Unlike the Caen Hill locks, the vast extent of the flight is always hidden from view as it climbs in a series of gentle curves. That's a pity, maybe, or possibly some shrewd tactical planning hen the flight was built to avoid demoralising boaters with an awesome forward sight!
But as you get higher, the views become far reaching and there's no disguising how high one is now, seeing the Severn Valley way below. The view from the reservoir edge near the top is even more impressive.
At the top we voted ourselves a pub dinner to celebrate, which meant another hour's travelling and through two short tunnels to Alvechurch. Our new mate Micky Cull (more of him another time) had recommended missing the marina pub ("that 'orrible pale watery beer - when they said it was from Kinver I knew it would be rubbish") in favour of the next. We did, rushed in there and discovered they didn't do meals on Mondays and Tuesdays. Daft sods! We hurried back along the towpath to the marina which was full of people eating from the 'two meals for a tenner' menu. Result - even if the beer was rubbish and the puddings - £3.50 extra - well worth avoiding unless you like crunching through frozen food. But none of that could spoil a good day and a challenge overcome.

Interlude: the delightful Droitwich

Before the hard labour of Tardebigge, a few words about a delightful interlude a couple of days back when we took a stroll down the soon-to-be-reopened Droitwich Canal from Hanbury to the edge of Droitwich itself.
What an idyllic little canal this will be. It drops down through a cluster of the original locks and then travels through a reconstructed channel and a couple of brand new locks before ducking under the M5 motorway and on into the town.
But the charm is its surroundings; a carefully cultivated (or rather uncultivated) wildlife haven thick with wild flowers and, on the sunny day when we walked through, alive with a multiplicity of butterflies. This will not be a canal for the long term or even the short-term moorers; the banksides have been deliberately left unkempt. If you want to explore, moor at Hanbury and stroll, as we did. You'll be well rewarded.

Back to Birmingham

Fifty eight locks and four tunnels. That's what awaited us on the run back from Worcester to Birmingham on the eponymous canal. A challenge for boaters and pretty impressive tribute to the determination of the men who forged a canal up through the hills to link the two cities over two hundred years go. Not the least part of the challenge is the mighty Tardebigge flight which climbs through 30 locks in a smidge over two miles. That's for tomorrow: tonight we're sitting looking at the bottom lock of the flight with a slight sense of dread!
The Worcester & Birmingham is a complete contrast to the canal which brought us down from the Midlands. The Staffs & Worcs was wide, deep and bold, running almost river-like between sandstone cliffs or through heavily tree lined stretches. The W&B, on the other hand, climbs through rolling, open farmland, rarely touching a village. It charts a narrow, secretive path, often barely a boat's width between thick clumps of reeds. From 50 yards away you wouldn't know it was there. In places it feels more like a quiet canal arm than a main artery.
Yesterday we wound out of Worcester in the familiar way a canal leaves its urban roots - climbing through less salubrious industrial and residential districts before waving goodbye to the city at the canalside football stadium. After that it was all country, though the relentless background drone of M5 motorway traffic was almost ever-present.
Last night we moored at the quaintly named hamlet of Oddingley; tonight we're opposite the Queens Head - a large and somewhat flashy pub that contrives to charge city prices for its beer despite its rural situation.

The lockie's lot

First aider, p.r. man, handyman, shopping adviser and local historian - there's a whole lot more to being a lock keeper than you might think if Mike Thompson, one of the Diglis Basin lockies is anything to go by. In fact actually operating the locks is probably the smallest part of his job.
Mike's a quiet affable chap who's a mine of information about the basins and their history - as well as knowing the nearest shops and the best spots to moor.
He can also spin some hair raising tales of accidents - only the day before we arrived a woman slipped when jumping off her narrowboat on the river landing stages, cracked her head on a stanchion and fell into the river. Luckily she came up conscious - and even more luckily Mike was working nearby and able to haul her out.
"She had a massive gash on her head," he recalled."I told her it was only a little cut to keep her calm - and then the ambulancemen came and said 'ooh, look at that huge cut on your head!"
He's seen many similar accidents - often to kids who dangle arms or legs over the sides of the boat as it goes into the lock. Another happened to a boat on the river: a boat went too close to an overhanging branch and swept the helsman straight off the back -- two women were sitting on the front chatting and completely oblivious. When they looked round, he wasn't there: fortunately after they turned round they found him in the water clinging to the branch.
On Sunday afternoon we spotted Mike heading off on his bicycle - I thought he was going home for his lunch but later we ran into him higher up the locks. The levels had got low in the basin and he'd been up the locks shepherding extra water supplies through. His 'patch' goes right up to Lock 8 and he can get more water sent down from higher up if needed but he has to see it carefully down through his locks to avoid wasting any 0ver the weirs.
It's a complicated business - and Mike does it with tact and good humour. It's people at the sharp end like him who keep the waterways working.

Old Mother Blick's Mustard Poultice

A guaranteed and proven cure or many ailments!! Put it on your chest to cure a cough. Put it on an aching joint to ease rheumatics. Draw out pustules. Soothe bruises.
And...put it round your sink drain to cure a leak.

The waste from our sink has just started dripping and it's going to be tricky to fix. So while I gnashed my teeth Mrs B came up with the thought that "don't you put mustard in a car radiator to cure leaks? Why don't we try that?"
While I smirked and looked down my nose, she carefully smeared mustard paste round the plughole. And, now, several hours later, the leak has stopped.
Old wives' tales really do work sometimes.

A tale of two basins

Moored in Stourport basin with the famous clock warehouse in the distance
In Diglis amid the new and the few surviving old buildings
Compare and contrast - as they used to say in school exam questions - Stourport and Diglis canal basins. Well let's start with the obvious stuff: both started life as basins and wharves where canals met the River Severn. Stourport at, er, Stourport for the Staffs & Worcs interchange and Diglis at Worcester where the Worcester & Birmingham Canal arrived at the river.
Both have also been the subject of substantial regeneration programmes having fallen on considerably hard times in the last 20-30 years as the last of the commercial river traffic fizzled out.
But there the similarities end. The regeneration of the Stourport basins, with the exception of the impressive resurrection of one old basin which is now back in water and surrounded by apartments and houses, has essentially been a washing up the dishes, vacuuming the carpets and plumping up the cushions affair. What was there, in short, has been licked into shape: the huge Tontine Hotel is being converted into homes, there are new facilities, various slightly odd 'interpretation' features and a new Windlass Restaurant. (It's very good.)
The basins, though, are still active and busy. Long term moorings may dominate but boats still cross the basins to ply between the river and canal. Housing is peripheral.
Diglis is very different. Inevitably so, I guess, given that Worcester is a large and largely appealing city whose long river frontage is a key element of its aesthetic appeal. Cruising down the Severn past the huge riverside cathedral is a memorable boating experience.
Virtually nothing remains of the past in the Diglis basins, bar the old pub and a couple of heavily reworked wharf buildings. The rest has become the hub of a massive riverside redevelopment programme that is still going on, edging on down the side of the Severn. The boats are now an almost static exhibit since both basins are used solely for long term mooring and craft moving to and from the canal simply skirt up the side of the first basin.
For all that, I have to say I was surprised and impressed by the place. The flats and offices show some real architectural flair and genuine waterside feel. Before any canal traditionalists fire a broadside in outrage, much of the old industrial wharfage of Diglis was pulled down in the seventies. Unlike Stourport there was not so much to save.
I wouldn't want every city waterscape to be a Diglis but this one works. It's quiet, civilised, easy on the eye and interesting. I could almost live there!Striking modern townhouses at Diglis feature much clever detail - their rears have balconies that overlook the basin