A Visit to Lichfield.

Tuesday 1st July, 2014 at Tamworth.
We awoke to a beautiful morning. What a joy it is to wake up to the peace of the countryside and the sound of birdsong. (We won't mention the A38, which you can only JUST hear!).

We had decided to spend the day in Lichfield; R had been very impressed on his visit there on Sunday and M, who had never been there, was keen to see the town.
Shortly after breakfast, a fine traditional boat by the name of "Aphrodite" moored up behind us and we enjoyed a lively conversation with Steve and Julie (and Daisy the dog). The boat has a wonderful, original wooden tiller.

R had done some research into bus times to the town - so down the towpath to Bridge 84, then round the potato field, across the railway line and into Streethay, where we managed to miss two buses!
As R had promised, the city centre is lovely. Samuel Johnson was born and educated here and his birthplace is now a museum.

Outside it stands a statue of Johnson and on the other side of the town square is a statue of Boswell, his biographer.

First stop was for an iced coffee at Costa, where we met a charming couple with their new "Yorkshire Terrorist" puppy called Millie, aged just ten weeks and who seemed very tense!

There are many very old buildings, including one from 1501 on the main street, but the back streets were also full of older buildings, and what new building there was tended to have been done in a sympathetic style.

The three-spired cathedral is amazing. The main spire was destroyed by canon fire in the Civil War. First the Parliamentarians beseiged the Royalists in the cathedral, then a month later the Royalists beseiged the Parliamentarians in the cathedral until they fled, allegedly with the cathedral treasures. Three years later, the Parliamentarians returned and finally took the cathedral, destroying the central spire with canon fire in the process.

There is a statue outside the cathedral dedicated to King Charles the Second who donated "money and timber" to rebuild the cathedral.
The west face is remarkable for the number of statues that cover it, including representations of most of the Kings of England and a few hundred saints and bishops!

The town was very busy at lunchtime and we had a light lunch in Debenhams, bought the obligatory "few bits" in M&S and then managed with perfect timing to catch a bus back to Streethay.
In a way, we were reluctant to leave such a lovely mooring but we need to be at Fazeley Junction tomorrow early to catch a train home for the weekend - for more babysitting, as Matt and Martin are playing on the main stage at Sonisphere - a huge opportunity for them.   So both of us will be looking after Eva and Tilly from Saturday lunchtime through to Sunday.
On the way, we passed the "garden of gnomes" that we had seen last year. If anything, there were even more gnomes than before!  Goodness knows what they get up to at night-time!!!!

We also passed the stone marking the boundary between the Coventry Canal and the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal.

So, in the late afternoon, we finally moored up just outside Tamworth in a very pleasant rural setting, leaving ourselves just a couple of miles to do in the morning.

Later in the evening, after supper, we saw the (nearly) new moon off to the west.

Today: 6 miles, 0 locks and 2.9 hours.
Trip: 31 miles, 8 locks and 18.3 hours.