Brighouse and Sowerby Bridge

More homeward bound cruising today as we head up towards Sowerby Bridge through Brighouse. The humans awake to discover that they have filled one of the toilet tanks up and rather than be reduced to the single aft "heads" for the rest of the holiday, they will try to get a "pump-out" at Brighouse's Sagar Marine engineering works.

On the way back up through Brighouse we are hailed by an old beardy guy with a narrow boat called Peppa which has expired and needs a hand up through the lock to the Brighouse basin. We take this guy in tow and then hand-over-hand him into the lock next to us, before lashing stem to stem, stern to stern so that we can manouvre him in the basin. By this method we get him moored alongside in the basin where he is happily Googling an engineer he knows in the locality. He has a 70 year old engine on board and the ancient chain-drive transmission has failed. Sagar Marine can't help him - he needs a "vintage boats" expert. They can, though, and do, pump us out. We are good to go.

We pair up with another "Shire Cruisers" boat (Hereford) and share locks all the way up through Brookfoot, Elland and Salterhebble bottom lock. Here we must part because (after completing an inadvertant but very neat pirrhouette when our bows catches the outflow from the emptying lock) the top two locks at Salter will only take one 56 footer at once. They are finishing their holiday anyway and giving the boat back tonight. We have one more night of sleeping on the boat, a night of Murder, Mystery and Suspense.... nearly. But more on that tomorrow

Deefski

Avast There!

We are back, Dear Reader, and with you again. Did you miss us? We have been on hols in Yorkshire, hiring a narrow boat from Shire Cruisers in Sowerby Bridge (this time the good ship "Northumberland") for a week's worth of cruising the inland waterways of Yorkshire. As ever this is a family event, so we take the Silverwoods from Ireland along with us, so we are 4 adults (Mum, Dad and Mr+Mrs S), 4 childrens (Em-J (12), J-M (10), M (4) and toddler R (2)) plus we two dogs, all in a 56 foot boat.

It's all excellent fun and we all survived, all be it there were rumours that I might have gone for total immersion baptism at one stage, but there are no photos to prove it. More on this over the next few days is "Captain's Log" format as last year, but for now a taster. 2 pictures - first of Dad manouvring in the Brighouse Basin lashed stern-to-stern and bow-to-bow to an old dead house-boat named Peppa who had "died" one lock down and needed an assist up to the top level. The second is myself (l) and the H(r) on the quayside in Hudderseild's Aspley Basin.

More tomorrow

Deefski

Keeping the Faith

We couldn't resist one more narrow-boat related blog, nor the photo's that came with it. An interior of the galley area, looking for'd through the 2 "double bedrooms" to the bow doors and the foredeck. Mum did most of the cooking - and it was proper cooking - roast joints, risotto, bolognese, lamb chops, even pigeon breasts. No messin' about with microwave ovens and ready meals. We dogs mostly ate on the aft deck.

A picture, too of the scenic "Old Royd Lock" from our overnight mooring (and the scene of Em-J's life-jacket exploding inundation). And finally one of the boat moored outside Sainsburys at Brighouse (hence the blog title, but if you don't know us it'll mean nothing).

It truly was a best holiday ever, and the humans have been talking about doing it again but with a different chunk of canal.Maybe the Rochdale canal again but from the West (Lancashire) side up to the summit and over at least as far as lock 25, linking up with where we had to stop this time. We met one group who had done the whole northern loop - Burnley to Sowerby Bridge via Leeds (93 miles, 86 locks and approx 50 hours of sailing). Coming back up through Salterhebble, though, they looked all in; exhausted; like a group who had perhaps bitten off more than they wanted to chew. One of the ladies, at least said she'd had enough after one day, but then had started to get stuck in with a kind of dull inevitablity.

We toyed briefly with the idea but decided that with 2 young children who are not interested in purely and only sailing (and who would be?) we'd be better off doing a leisurely one again with stop offs. Mum is, anyway, an English Literature buff and was spitting anyway to be that close to Haworth and not be able to go see.

But now we're all home again and the joys of home, garden and the local town walks are once again our thing. It's Ellie's, Archie's and my birthday on Monday (did I mention that?), so we've been trying to organise a joint walk with all 7 dogs (Meg, the H, Mollie and Hector of course) as a celebration. If it happens, we'll keep you posted with some 7-dog photo's. Should be a blast

Meanwhile, carry on enjoying your weekend

Deefer

Downstream

Foiled in our attempt on the summit, we are now heading downstream, and with a few days now spare, we decide to go down beyond Sowerby Bridge to try out the bits of the "navigation" that are, in fact, the River Calder

In forward gear again we slot back into the deliciously relaxing routine, and chug back down through Hebden Bridge (where we take on water and lose bagged up rubbish), and Sowerby Bridge (where the nice staff at Shire Cruisers replace Em-J's exploded life jacket with a non-inflated one; easier to wear for little Em-J). Then on through Copley and the lovely scenic Salterhebble, where we stop for the night

Mum and Dad have brought with them the bat-detector box , and the Silverwoods are fascinated to stand this on the bow of the boat in the dark, and then marry the squarks, burps, pitter-pats and farts of the box, to the bats we can see zooming round the basin, curving, diving, loop-th-looping and racing in (mating?) pairs. At least some of these, say Mum and Dad, might be Daubentons (we can tell by the frequency). They are certainly too big to be pipistrelles

Evenings are good for chilling out. We dogs are allowed to stroll the canal banks provided the humans are out and about, generally relaxing on the deck with a glass of nice Rioja. The girls have done blackberrying, and are now collecting berries, leaves, flowers and herby bits to make Harry Potter "potions" to cure bruising and mozzie bites (allegedly)

With morning we chug on down through Elland and Brookfoot to Brighouse, where we drop down into the River Calder. Here Dad decides to give the boat a bit more ooomph (realistically 4-5 mph rather than our normal 2!) and chogs up the throttle. We mustn't make a "breaking wake" in the rules, but it's nice to see the proper "V" of a bow-wave and the girls are hanging over the blunt bow watching the water rise. We are shepherded out of the Calder at a weir, through the "flood locks", and lunch (almost) under the M62 near Kirklees.

That's it, though for our downward run. Running out of days, we must turn round and head back up towards Sowerby Bridge, mooring overnight near the basin, so that we can bimble back in to hand the boat back for 09.30. Mum is convinced that all Yorkshire ladies are as fastidious cleaners as Diamond's aged aunt Ella, so she is determined to pre-blitz the boat before hand over.

That's pretty much it for my tale of our adventures on "Northumberland". All that was left was a diversion in the cars to the summit we had failed to reach on Wednesday. We drove there in 30 minutes (it took 3 days in the boat!), parked up and went for a walk about behind the "Summit" pub. Then we parted company with the Silverwoods; they off to Liverpool for a visit to Anfield (Mad keen 'Pool supporters all!) and a night in a hotel; we for the 4 hour drive home.

Fantastic

More tomorrow, as memories occur

Hope you've enjoyed my nautical tale.

I am One Year Old on Monday

Have a great weekend

Deefer

Oh - the pics today

1) The River Calder below Brighouse, with the signposted right turn towards Sowerby Bridge

2) We loved this waterpoint at the Summit, labelled K9 and (naturally) housing a doggie water bowl

3) Another bottom-bunk escape hole

4) Keeping watch from the aft deck