Grandma Pollard's Chippy

As rude as we were inclined to be about Heckle and Jeckle, the combined crews of our two boats made for some great "lock wrangling" team work. Leaving Todmorden's "blue wall" at about 9 we attacked lock after lock, the 4 wranglers swarming all over gates and paddles, running ahead to set the next lock before we'd left the previous one. We climbed rapidly through Gauxholme, under the impressive castellated railway viaduct and on up to Walsden where.......

...we decided to try out a chippy noted in the excellent "Canal Companion" books (JM Pearson and Son Ltd), Grandma Pollard's Chippy. Without doubt the BEST fish and chips any of us had ever tasted, and we dogs can vouch for that and the fried potato-slice "dabs" that came with them, because of the amount inadvertantly dropped or deliberately fed to us by the children when Mum and Dad weren't looking.

In fact, so much "stray" food did we get on that holiday that we seemed to be "off our food" to Mum and Dad, until the reason became clear!

All parties determined to stop back at GP's on the way back down, but we knew we'd have to watch our timings - GP shuts at 3pm some days and isn't open at all at weekends. We strongly reccommend Grandma Pollard's if you're in the Gauxholme or Todmorden area!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=grandma+pollards+walsden&fb=1&split=1&gl=uk&view=text&latlng=11259490757895769097

That done, the tillermen were back at their helms, and the boats charging on once more towards the summit. We actually got to the first rstricted lock (No 33) by 1pm, and phoned the Waterways people to see if we could blag an early crossing. No, they said - they were sticking to their single booking per day (1 pair of boats either way), and to be fair, when we did go over, we could see why, but more of that later.

Deefski

Heckle and Jeckle

I've mentionned that this summit canal and locks are closely controlled by the British waterways guys due to the shortage of water at the summit. Etiquette and the Rules of the Road (plus common sense) dictate that to conserve water you move two boats with each lock-full if at all possible and this tends to mean that you pair up with another boat and go up or down together.

As two boats were booked out of Sowerby Bridge on the same day, and both due to cross the summit on the same day, this made it inevitable that we were "stuck with" the other boat for at least 3 and a half days. Needless to say you want these to be "nice" people or it can ruin a holiday. We were lucky then to be paired up with a couple from Leeds with whom we could get on (ish).

Ish? She was an absolute diamond, ex vet, now accountant, rescue dog owner and a demon around the lock-wrangling. He was just a tad less "easy" - a bit of an un-reconstructed old boy with a high, nasal Leeds voice that had you reminded of George Formby and who our lot were soon making sly comments about Ukulele players.

Totally useless domestically, apparently (we blame the parents) and given to expressions like "t'Dragon" (every time he was talking about "t'wife", and while totally glued to the back deck and his tiller, very generous with his advice on what she should do differently, an all round "expert" on everything. We were all waiting for a proper "domestic" to break out, but it never did.

These two were secretly named "Heckle and Jeckle" and the name stuck.

Deefer

Getting there and Tuel Tunnel

Day 1 of the adventure, and Mum and Dad have us up, fed and walked at an early hour because it's a 4-5 hour run in the car. Also Mum's been running yet another OU essay right up to the deadline and has been typing away till 2 am, so there's a bit of a last minute packing crisis. Mum doses up on some rocket fuel vitamin mixture and manages to be awake for enough time to pack her stuff and get as far as the car. She can then sleep for the journey (and she pretty much does!).

We hit Sowerby Bridge at about 1pm, to find the Silverwoods are already on site, gathered round a caff and thinking about lunches and coffees. That's Mr and Mrs S, of course, then Em-J (11), J-M (9), M (3) and baby R (18 months). This boat is going to contain 4 adults (well "grown ups" anyway - more on how "adult" some of them are soon), 4 children and we 3 dogs. As is the law around these boat hires, Dad is nominated "Skipper" (someone has to be), and for fun all the rest are allocated tasks and ranks - Mr S is "Chief Lock Wrangler", for example and Mum is "Galley Slave and Baby-wrangler". Baby R is "Ballast".

At 2pm they release the boat to us, and give the humans their briefing and training/refresher (electrics, engine, gas, central heating, cooker etc) plus show them through the first couple of locks - probably more to assess them than to train them. Would you let this lot loose with £100,000 and 7 ton of boat? Nor would I.

This also neatly gets us through one of Sowerby Bridge's more famous loacks , the Tuel Tunnel double-height one, nominated numbers 3/4. When the canal pretty much went out of use and was abandonned in the 50's, some councils took the opportunity to widen main roads by filling in the canal and building over the top.

When the campaign to re-open them started with the explosion of tourism around waterways, this meant that some sections of canal had to be re-invented along slightly different lines. In Manchester (we think it is) there is even a new right angle bit around a fairly new Supermarket. In Sowerby Bridge, locks 3 and 4 had been demolished, and the solution was to tunnel under the road (the Tuel Tunnel) and then create a hugely tall lock chamber with massive tall gates that lifts the boats up the equivalent height (19 feet 4" total) of the two original locks.

http://canalplan.tty.org.uk/cgi-bin/gazetteer.cgi?id=bljd

This lock is manned by the British Waterways officials, and you "rope on" by feeding a loop of rope through vertical slidey cables set in rebates in the lock wall, so that your loop of rope comes up with the boat.

Then we had lots of paperwork to sign and we were free to go!

Deefski

The Summit

Longterm followers of this blog will know that this narrow-boating thing is now in its third year, and that in 2007, our mission to climb up the Rochdale canal over the summit and down to Littleborough (in Lancashire) was thwarted by a water shortage and some canal "pounds" with too little water in them, forcing us to turn back.

We climbed up through Todmorden but the shallow run-aground pound that thwarted us, between locks 25 and 26 (Smithyholme and Pinnel) meant that we got only 100 yards past lock 25 and had to reverse out (then reverse all the way back to Todmorden (not easy in a 56 foot boat - a matter of much roping and poling).

In 2008 we chose a different kind of route - a hard charging one-direction mission through Leeds to Burnley, but this year we opted to try again at the Summit. The guys from British Waterways have now got it a lot more organised so that numpty tourists can't leave paddles open and fail to close locks correctly, so water is conserved much better up there. You have to book passage over, and the numbers and slots are severely restricted.

Their man (In our case a westie owner called Dave) then collects you at the bottom of the restriction (lock 34) at the allotted time and pretty much shepherds you through, helping you with locks and letting extra water into the pounds to make sure you get through. You must also go in pairs of boats to maximise efficiency (of which more later). You then part company with him on the way back down, as you drop out of the poorly locks (subsidence, bellying sides and leaky doors) back into better maintained bits of canal.

So - we made it, and had plenty adventures on the way, which I will regale you with as we go through the next few days.

Look after yourself

Deefer

The Good Ship "Sussex"

Another week with no postings, but this time for a very very good reason, namely we were away on this year's Narrow Boating Holiday. Regular readers will know that we use Sowerby Bridge (near Halifax) based firm Shire Cruisers, whose boats are all named after counties, and this year we were on the good ship "Sussex".

We are only just back, and we are still unpacking and recovering, the humans de-grunging in the shower and Mum feeding us all, so much much more of all our adventures later, and over the next few days, but for now let a couple of pics suffice, to give you some idea. The 3-dog pic is left to right, megs, my good self and the H, and the single dog posing above the "Sussex" name plate is, of course, H-man.

We had a whale of a time, making up for the shallow-water, no-access disappointments of 2007 by successfully negotiating the summit over to Littleborough, and managed to give Mum all she could need in terms of relaxing, shopping and bimbling after the 2008 hard-charging go-go-go deadlines mission through Leeds to Burnley.

Much more over the next few days.

Lurve

Aft-Deck Hand and Lock-wrangling assistant, Deefer

Allotment Bounty

Just one more pic from the "home leg" of the twinning thing if I may - an oil painting presented from La Chapelle to Birchington (one of many gifts in a looooong ceremony!) and look, down there in the lower left is "our old girl", Mademoiselle d'Armentieres.

Sorry that postings have once again been a bit thin on the ground. It's been mad round here through June and July as Dad has had the Village of the Year judging (we cover the "Environmental Action" category, now called "Sustainability"), and Gardens for Wildlife judging, and Mum has been trying to be there for Diamond who is in hospital.

Diamond update - she's OK and being well looked after; she's in the safest place; but it is quite a long and hard treatment she must go through before she can be pronounced fit and well, so all those who know her will be wishing her well. Rags has been to visit, we know and although he took a while to suss that this was his Mum, he was overcome with excitement and joy when he worked it all out. (Anyone who wants to know an update, email my Dad privately and we'll tell you all).

Meanwhile the allotment has gone from nothing really ready, to glut, all in one hit, but as we are shortly feeding the 5000, this is a good thing, and Dad has been up there tonight to gather in the first French beans, Rainbow chard and baby beetroot, plus some more artichokes, broad beans and peas. More of the 5000 later.

Talking of babies, a lovely sight tonight when a parent goldfinch brought young to the garden and provided food from the sunflower kernel feeders (presumably part-digested). First time we've knowingly seen young gold finches.

Ah well, with all this judging over, we might be able to post more regularly soon (although we must just get through this feeding-the-5000 hiatus.

Look after yourself, and have a great weekend

Deefski

Came in as Heathcliff....

Mum can sometimes throw in a very literary comment, being of an English Lit educated persuasion. When Dad fled home from the recent 2CV camp all sweaty, dirty and smelly, sneaking home for a shower before returning to the site all fresh and fragrant (Did I really write that?) Mum was heard to say he "came back as Heathcliffe and left as Linton"

We're not sure we want such references made to our Dad (and hero!) especially when you can get quotes like this, below from Wikipedia.....

"(1797, aged 12) [Linton] was asleep in a corner, wrapped in a warm, fur-lined cloak, as if it had been winter. A pale, delicate, effeminate boy, who might have been taken for [Edgar's] younger brother, so strong was the resemblance: but there was a sickly peevishness in his aspect that Edgar Linton never had."

... but we think we know where she was coming from.

Today, Dad's been out most of the day at the barge Cambria, which is open as one of the attraction in Faversham's "Open Houses" festival, whereby local residents with interesting and historic houses open them to the public

http://www.faversham.org/pages/event_item.aspx?i_PageID=111308

They had over a hundred visitors to the barge and they were exhausted - all that declaiming in the hot sun! Rush home and enjoy some Haagen Dazs icecream, would be my advice.

Oh, you already have!

Deefski