Brum & Worcs Canal: 5-Ways to the Uni

Actually, this was only one way to the Uni but from Five Ways. I caught the bus from the Med School after a lunchtime meeting and hopped off in Five Ways and joined the canal looking, looking, looking for benchmarks and bolts.

I got to the Somerset Road Bridge and, with most of the walls that ostensibly held bolts now heavily worn or replaced by metal-slat fencing, I can confirm that there is the dictionary definition of fuck all to find there. Up top, as well, there are signs of wall damage to consider.

At the bridge, there should have been two Cut Marks, one each to the northwest sides of the rail and the canal sections of the bridge. But, all I could find was the one boxed with highlighting (canal one) and the graffito bemoaning our ‘korupt’ system.

Determined to succeed if at all possible, I continued back to the labs along Edgbaston Park Road and spotted the faint CM in stone not far from where I turned on to the road (above and detail below).

There was another, similarly hard to spot mark across from the entrance to the campus hotel (listed as Hornton Grange on my old documents)…see if you can spot it:

If you said, “here” then treat yourself to a nice beverage:

Canal Segments, 19 Oct 2021

It has been a long time since I last added some canal furniture to the map so here are some graffiti and bridges between and Kings Norton from the lunch run today.

Pershore Road Bridge is the first new one and contains a Dad Joke Graffito:

And, a fez (and if anything warms my cockles, it is a fez):

I’ve photographed the rail bridge and its thumb before (like, here) but not since tracking the canal accoutrements began:

The youth of today graffito at the top of this post came from the Lifford Lane bridge:

The Avon Ring crossover bridge is at the junction of two mighty canals. There is also a footpath off to the right through a lovely park in the civilised portion of Kings Norton:

And, I left the canal at Wharf Road:

Canal Furniture: Selly Oak to Bournville

It was a longer than usual day at the labs broken by a lunchtime run down to Bournville along the canal to resume the Canal Furniture project (started roughly this time last year). Above, there’s a barge turn at what appears to be a former wharf followed soon on by what is simply a former entrance to another wharf in Selly Oak.

There was still some snow lingering but it was merely cool out yesterday.

This railway bridge crosses almost parallel to this gauging station beneath it.

Directly across from where I took this photo of the Raddlebarn Road Bridge sits the Country Girl, an unremarkable pub except for the funny memory it evoked when I visited it a couple of years ago (not even a couple of months after we moved here from that London).

The bridge is marvelous, though. The red doors/hatches are on a lot of bridges around here, installed during The Blitz so fire brigades could pump from the canals.

I ran this section several times per week when we lived near Weoley Castle but never really noticed that the bridge, below, goes nowhere. There’s just a vegetation filled gully beyond the rails to the right and someone’s driveway to the left.

Then, there is Bournville Station, my turnaround point for the day. That wasn’t the plan but the blind lady and her escort were travelling exceedingly slowly and by the time we reached the bridge a pile-up of 6 cyclists, 4 other runners, and a dog walker had accumulated. I needed to get back to the labs, anyway.

2020 Commute 37 of 52 (To): Lockdown Stats and #GVRAT Update

I am meant to understand that Lockdown is lifted and we are in something called “Phase 1” (ahead, I am also convinced, of Lock Back Down).

The aqueduct high over Aston Webb Blvd

The pubs are still closed.

The rail bridge between Selly Oak and University stations

Running during Lock Down: managed 63 out of the 72 days clocking up 458 miles.  Not including today (14.5 miles today on the canals with an additional Selly Oak stretch plus another 2.1 around West Brom after returning home) but starting with the one during which the Lockdown was announced, there were 19 of these done as commutes.

A utility bridge as you approach Sainsbury’s

Started a run project during The Lockdown based on canals and their accoutrements.  Several hundred canal features have been logged so far.

A new footbridge near the new student housing next to Sainsbury’s

Today’s new segment is between University and Selly Oak rail stations on the Brum & Worcs Canal (area map link for today’s bits here).  There was also a repeating Conspiracy Stencil between (at least) central Birmingham and Selly Oak:

The campus is not yet open but there were actually security personnel manning the otherwise closed entrances (so instead of jumping over, crawling under, or pushing past barricades I got to show my ID like a civilised person).

Bristol Road Bridge where my canal segments ended for the day

The Great Virtual Run/Race Across Tennessee continues on.  As of today, I have racked up 261.7 miles putting me near Flintville:

The virtual location is not covered by Google StreetView, so I have today’s location looked back at from the next intersection a few hundred feet away: