Four More Sleeps

While the rest of the Western World might be waiting for Christmas and telling their children "19 more sleeps" to rein in their excitement, in our family we are on "four more sleeps" in anticipation of the Great Adventure on Sunday afternoon through to Monday morning. Mum and Dad are in a kind of temporary routine. Dad's alarm goes off at 07:30 and he shares breakfast time with Mum, cooking toast this morning. Diamond stays a-bed a little while longer. Mum goes off to work for the pre-penultimate time this morning well wrapped in the new pink "Commander Dave" coat, woollen scarf, purple big bobble hat and gloves, lap top over her shoulder. She opts to walk. "It'll do me good", she says.

Dad is off to the caravan this morning to clear out any perishables left there when they stop using it and make sure it is fit to be handed back to 2CV Llew. Main events though are a public screening of the new Mike Maloney (Countrywide Productions) barge film "Red Sails" which features a lot of SB Cambria and actually has Dad's name in the credits. This is happening in the cinema ("The Royal") in Faversham Town Centre and is free so we expect a big turn out and there is an option to show the film again later in the afternoon if it is over crowded.

Then tonight is the next in Dad's succession of farewell do's, this one the 2CV club lot having their Christmas Dinner at the pub the group uses for it's club nights, the Haywain in Bramling, just east of Canterbury. Llew is driving tonight so Dad can have a beer or two.

Last night Dad bad farewell to the Horticultural Society for whom he has been Treasurer for 11 years. It's a lively club holding 4 Shows, a dance, 2 or 3 coach trips (one a 4-night holiday), a quiz and 12 Speakers Nights per year. It has a turn over of about £20,000 per year so there is plenty for the Treasurer to do and Dad has enjoyed it but last night is the AGM where Dad must present the audited accounts one last time. They all seem to love him there (poor fools!) and he gets a nice send off with votes of thanks coming from all ways and a presentation of an engraved pewter tankard. There is a small party in his honour after the meeting which includes a cold buffet which features cheese straws, a known favourite of Dad's and subject of plenty of joking by the many little old ladies and aul' fellas who make up the Society. Dad is succeeded (as they say) by new Treasurer Alf so good luck to him. Dad hopes he enjoys the job as much as Dad did himself, all be it Dad is now pleased and relieved to be handing over the tiller.

Four More Sleeps

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Fran's Pictures

Dad finally gets round to opening the CD of pictures of the narrow boating holiday sent to us by Fran and Commander Dave. Like us, they spent the holiday with disabled cameras so we were all struggling to get some decent pics, using camcorders on single shot etc, but there are some good ones in here. Thanks for that Fran and Dave - hope you're keeping well. I have also emailed a selection off to the Silverwoods. I love the one of their entire family as they emerge from Standedge Tunnel. Brilliant.

After heavy rain overnight Dad nips down to the barge to see if anything is dripping through and is pleased to note all the through-deck leaks are now cured by a combination of his and Richard's painting, plus Shipwright John's re-caulking. The couple of tiny leaks remaining are not through decks, but rather at joins between, for example, skylight and deck. They will need some other kind of fix.

Dad must also provision up for Mum's Birthday meal tomorrow. The deal is the Birthday girl or boy gets to choose the stylee of eating, restaurant or home, and Mum rather fancies Dad cook a spectacliar for the two of them plus Diamond and John, so Dad's had to nip off in search of 'spectacliar' ingredients. No pressure. One cause of stress which has gone away, though, Amazon have just managed to sneak in delivery of part of the present. They'd been running a bit close to the wire, with the big day being tomorrow.

Now, as I write this at 11:30, the skies are finally clearing and the sun is breaking through so I expect we'll get to go out for our walk soon.

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Falling Royd Tunnel

Days 2 and 3 of the narrow boating saga and the adventure begins in earnest. Our first choice to do the Pennine Ring of canals clockwise is thwarted by a broken lock cill (more accurately the threshold of the cill) near Huddersfield which will have closed the canal just when we wanted to ascend through it, so we are on plan B, the same route anticlockwise. We must ascend to the summit of the Rochdale canal where we are booked through on Thursday.

But first, let me introduce young Maxwell who readers nwill have only seen as a small ball of white fluff curled up among the cats at Steak Lady's abode. Look at him now - a fine figure of a man at only 7 months old, almost the same size as me. That's him on the right. He's good fun and great company, all be it I have to shout at him now and again when he gets a bit too uppity or tries to take over my Dad's lap or his bit of the seats. Green Eye? Moi?

Here too, we meet two human characters and another dog, who will be very much part of this circumnavigation. "Commander Dave" and his wife Fran, plus collie cross Bonnie are in a baby-sister ship the "Oxford" and are doing the same route as us with the same bookings through pinch points, so the rules are we should pair up through locks to save water. It is brilliant, in these cases, if the paired boat crew are good, nice people as you are going to spend a fair amount of time with them and co-operate. Conversely it is a real pain if they are incompatible, as we have seen in the past but superbly, this time, we get lucky and Dave and Fran are great fun, easy to work with, a lovely couple, and we dogs quickly get on with Bonnie, who is a natural at hopping on and off boats and nipping round locks, bridges, towpaths etc.

So, on Tuesday we leave Brearly and chug gently upwards in good weather through Mytholmroyd (where Dad is proud to have not hit anything in the first big helming challenge, Falling Royd Tunnel - from blazing sun to pitch black just as the canal, in the dark does 4 turns inside the narrow tunnel!) and Hebden Bridge as far as Todmorden, where we moor by the "Great Wall". On Wednesday we move on again up through Gauxholm to the pre-summit pound from where we can walk back to the famous Grandma Pollards chippie (an annual treat).

This pond is very low, with great dry mud banks either side on top of one of which is perched a cruiser completely high and dry. We plough the mud and manage to get our bow against the bank so that we can get on and off, but the stern has to sit out mid channel on a long rope and we all sleep the night at a rather jaunty angle, bows high and listing considerably to port!

At one stage both Maxwell and Bonnie try swimming for a laugh, Max lepping unseen from the back deck into a lock so that Dad, helming, is only aware of his going from the sploosh noise, but can quickly wrangle him back onto the deck, grabbing him by the collar - no harm done. Bonnie does hers trying to leap from boat to boat and we all see her go.

Lucky we brought dog towels

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