Tony Blews

Postman Pat called this week, delivering somewhat of a surprise. Amid the usual bumf from marketing robots, and a letter addressed to Mr. Austin Allego (more in a future post), he brought 2 DVDs from Paul Balmer of Waterway Routes. Here they are photographed on my nice brown duvet, as my desk is far too cluttered for them to fit on to.

The two DVD sets (Birmingham Canal Navigations and Caldon Canal) each contain two DVDs, a map, an explanatory booklet and a catalogue leaflet, as shown in the awful quality photograph here.

So what is on the DVDs? Well, one from each set contains an overview of the canal system in question, with highlights of the journeys. The other DVD contains a speeded up journey of the entire system, filmed from the box of the boat. Each is narrated by Paul himself (I assume).

Both are fascinating, and well worth the price (especially my free ones), and should Paul ever produce editions for the Lancaster Canal or Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal I’ll happily fork out the money for them.

Just some photos from my wander along the Shropshire Union Canal in Chester, from a few weeks ago.

And as a bonus, here is a map of the route where I wandered…

View Larger Map

As part of my continuing interest in canals, i’ve started pretty much finish marking every single last canal (current, derelict and in-filled) and navigable river in England.

http://www.coobeastie.co.uk/gecm/

However, if I even look like i’m considering mapping all the UK’s abandonned and derelict railway lines, please shoot me.

Ah while ago, a Mr. Andrew Denny of Granny Buttons bemoaned the lack of a UK specific site ranking chart for canal and waterways related blogs.

So, I made one which tracks hits via a little image button thing like this…
… then formats the results into a nice table.

Furthermore, it is located at http://www.coobeastie.co.uk/ranking/

Right then…. next project?