Saturday 3rd July 2004

Up early again today, about seven o'clock — early enough to have a shower and still have time to walk into Wantage and get some cash from a 'hole in the wall'. I also picked up a Guardian and an Economist. By the time I got back Alan and June were up and about. We had some breakfast, then Alan and I set off about a quarter to nine.

It was quite a distance to Skipton so we had plenty of time to discuss a wide variety of topics. These included the progress of the Wantage Bridge Club, how a bridge tournament is organised, the relationship between a priest and his bishop, the possibility (and meaning of) objective truth and the works of the Brontës.

We turned off the M1 and drove through Huddersfield and Halifax, arriving in Skipton about twenty past one. We met Nick and Penny The Narrowboat, which turned out to be a really excellent pub, with a selection of about 8 real ales — all from Yorkshire. I was sorry I'd left my camera in the car because the front of the pub was remarkably picturesque. It fronts onto an alleyway and has a sort of colonnade before you got to the front door — rather reminiscent of Bath or Tunbridge Wells.

Nick and Penny told us that when stopped at Newcastle-under-Lyme on the way up, they got talking to some people in a pub. One of them seemed to be very popular with Maddie (their dog). One of the others said this was because 'she thinks y'am a bone'. Nick and Penny were much taken with this example of West Midlands dialect.

Group Photo

We got to the boatyard about a quarter to three and there was very little delay (by normal standards) before we were able to get under way. The people there (it was Snaygill Boatyard) were very friendly and helpful. One of them took this picture for us:

First impressions of the boat were very good. The engine sounds remarkably smooth and the facilitities and layout of the boat look pretty good too. There are traditional painted scenes on the back doors — the first time I can remember seeing this on a hire boat. (See photo, a little further down the page).

We got under way about half past three, the weather sunny though with threatening clouds and a strong wind. It had rained quite a lot on the way up to Skipton but it was dry most of the time we were cruising. There were quite a few swing bridges, which also had to be unlocked, and this slowed things down a bit. Still, we made reasonable progress.

Alan got off at four o'clock as we came into Skipton, to get some cash from a machine. We picked him up about 15 minutes later, just after I'd had a near miss with a moored boat — a mixture of inattention on my part, combined with the strong wind.

At twenty to six we got to Gargrave Locks, where I got off to go to Mass. I'd looked it up in the Catholic Directory and although the village didn't have its own Catholic church it did have a small chapel served from a neighbouring parish. I'd mistaken the time of Mass so I arrived in the middle of the sermon. As the chapel was very small — only big enough for about 12 people — my arrival did cause rather a disturbance. Still, they were very good about it.

Before I'd left the boat I'd used Alan's phone to check about the reinstatement of my mobile. I got the text message to say that it was up and running, just as I got back to the boat, about a quarter to seven. We arrived at Gargrave top lock about half past seven.

Painting on  back door of boat

At the top lock we nearly had a nasty accident. The water came in very forcefully as Nick opened one of the paddles and an alarmingly large amount had come in over the bow before he managed to lower the paddle again. We'd left the bow doors open, but we were lucky and almost no water had got up into the lounge. There was just room to moor below Bank Newton Flight, about half past seven. Just now, we're having some sherry while Penny's cooking some pasta for supper.

The pasta turned out very well — which, unfortunately, is more than can be said for the grappa that Alan had brought back from Italy. This was 'Grappa al Tartufo Nero' (black truffle grappa) and turned out to be highly unpalatable. As far as I know, none of us actually know what black truffles taste like — but the grappa tasted very peculiar. Luckily we had another source of grappa, which Nick and Penny had also brought back from Rome when Nick was on his way back from on a visit to Sicily.

Next Page