Aspley and Battyeford

And so on up the Huddersfield broad canal as far as that fair city which proves, in the form of Aspley Basin, to have a superb boat-friendly, canal-facing centre where we can turn around, moor up, refill with water and buy provisions. There's a stiff breeze blowing, sometimes across the canal, sometimes straight at us down the cut. Dad says this makes helming more interesting as you have to crab down the canal at an angle, and any low speed stuff around locks has you going sideways. Didn't look that difficult to me! Just an excuse to hang onto the helm as far as we could see!

We moor for the night near Battyeford having made our way back down the HBC and then turned right out of the Calder into the eastbound bit of canal. It's here that I allegedly fell in, trying to do a misjudged leap from bank to fore-deck and slipping short, plopping straight in. It is alleged I then swam very professionally forward about 10 feet to a low bit of bank where Dad could haul me out by the collar. As I said, though, no photo's to prove that.

The humans have been enjoying getting into reading chunks of Terry Pratchett books to the girls at bedtime. The girls can, of course, read quite happily for themselves, but this has become a good family entertainment. The humans are taking it in turns and are enjoying the Scottish voices of Pratchett's fictional swearing-fighting-drinking-thieving "pictsies", the Nac Mac Feegles. If that means nothing to you then grab a copy of Terry Pratchett's "Hat Full of Sky" or "Wintersmith". Great fun!

Deefski

On downstream (day 2)

Mum and Dad muster early, still being a bit in work-mode, but the Silverwoods are recovering from their over night ferry which featured Toddler-R deciding to tantrum instead of sleeping, so they're all a bit wiped. My pics today are of two special features of the holiday. Those who know us will know of the connection to a well known Supermarket, so here's a nice pic of the good ship Northumberland moored alongside the said shop in Brighouse.

Those who know Mr S will know of his avid fan-dom of Liverpool FC. Mum and Dad thought it'd be fun to get hold of a "Calder and Hebble hand-spike" (a chunk of hardwood used to open the ground paddles on some of the C+HN locks) in advance of the holiday and paint it up in Liverpool colours, decorate it with stickers and present it to Mr S st the first lock. It went down well. Mr S loved it!

And so, we tootle gently down stream, everyone falling into the pleasant regime from last year, Dad doing most of the helming (occasionally ousted by keen trainee helmers of all ages), with Mr S loving his lock-wrangling assisted by any combination of Mum, Mrs S, Em-J, J-M and M. We chug down to Brighouse where we stop for a major provisioning shop (and are witness to a racist "incident" which we are determined to stay out of). On down to Cooper Bridge, alternating sections of canal with the River Calder, where we divert off to check out Huddesfield's Aspley Basin. Brilliant place with lots of canal-side facilities and canal-facing pubs etc.

Just out of Huddersfield we moor up near Deighton in a lovely rural stretch where dogs and children can safely explore the tow path. We are really starting to enjoy this holiday now.

Deefski