Fine autumn weather.

We dropped back down the Gargrave locks on Saturday morning, timing it well as we met boats coming up. 

Out of Higherland Lock, and there’s two boats in the distance just coming up Eshton Road Lock

We left Eshton Road Lock open for a Silsden fat boat heading up.

The day had started a bit overcast, but brightened steadily through the day.

We moored below Holme Bridge Lock, leaving the swing bridges to do today.
Mags’ son Howard came over for the afternoon yesterday, bringing mail and some items I’d ordered online. Meg is always pleased to see him…
I think the pocket full of gravy bones has something to do with it!

This morning was frosty and cold, I bet the sheep were glad to have their wooly coats on!



We left it till nearly eleven before heading off back towards Skipton. We were hoping to meet boats at the bridges, and it worked on two of the four we passed this morning.

Leaving Highgate Swing Bridge after being ushered through.

A spectacular morning…


We had Thorlby and Niffany Swing Bridges to deal with before catching up with a hirer just going through Gawflat Bridge and following them through.

A kestrel near Niffany looking out for an early lunch…
Sorry, a little out of focus…

We moored between Gawflat and Brewery Swing Bridges for a change today. Meg had an appointment with Sam at Ashfields vets at 4 o’clock. It’s a bit further from here but she’s feeling a lot better now. The consultation went well, there’s no trace of blood in her wee now, which implies that the bladder infection that has plagued her for the last few weeks is on the retreat. I thought that was the case, she’s not leaking so much as she was. In fact she rarely has an accident through the day. But Sam is a bit concerned about her weight. She reckons that she (Meg) could do with losing a couple of pounds… It’s the sausages she has her medication with that’re doing it! So instead of 5 a day we’ll drop it to three. And ease off on the gravy bones…

Mags’ CT results finally came through. It appears she has gallstones in her bile ducts, nothing life-threatening but we have a visit to her GP in a couple of weeks to discuss treatment. She feels fine though, so they can’t be that serious. She absolutely refuses to go in for surgery… If the condition can be managed with diet and medication we might be able to finally move on in the first week of November. I’ve devised a schedule which gets us over to the Llangollen Canal just after Christmas, working around the pre-Christmas maintenance stoppages. If we don’t get away then we’ll probably finish up stopping in the north for the duration. There’s worse places to be, though.

Locks 3, miles 5¼

A change of scene and christening a new windlass.

We’re up at Gargrave now, having left Skipton on Tuesday, stopping overnight below Holme Bridge Lock, then coming up to the moorings above Higherland Lock yesterday. Three locks done, the first for three months!

Leaving Springs Branch Junction on Tuesday

Cool and gloomy as we headed north and west

Mags certainly would have liked it to be warmer!

With five swing bridges done we moored just below Holme Bridge Lock at lunchtime. The afternoon brightened up quite nicely after the overcast morning.

Yesterday we waited till nearly 11:00 before moving on. We were hoping for a boat to arrive to share the locks with, but when I saw one coming down I thought we might as well take advantage of the empty lock. We were nearly up, helped by the crew of another boat heading down, when one arrived below the lock. They declined my offer of waiting at Eshton Road Lock for them though. At 60 foot long they were concerned that we’d struggle to get both boats in these short Leeds and Liverpool locks. So we tackled all three on our own.

Coming up Eshton Road Lock…


…and Higherland Lock


Moored above Higherland Lock after turning in the winding hole.

There were three or four boats here when we arrived, but we managed to secure the sunny spot between the winding hole and the services. Well worth it too, it was a fine sunny afternoon and today is positively warm after a frosty start.
There’s been a bit of traffic today, a couple of Silsden hire boats arrived later yesterday and they’ve turned around and headed back down this morning, then at lunchtime the Short Boat Kennet went past, heading down to Skipton for a bit of a paint job.

Leeds and Liverpool Short Boat Kennet dropping down Higherland Lock.




(Click on pic to enlarge…)
Sorry about the legs in the last picture. They’re mine and you’ll notice I‘m still in shorts!

Now you may remember, when we came down Anchor Lock all those weeks ago, I lost my aluminium windlass in the canal below the bridge. A couple of hours magnet fishing was fruitless, at least as far as the missing windlass was concerned. I did dredge up several items of cutlery and an assortment of tin cans though…
Anyway, we finished the trip to Skipton with me using a heavy steel windlass, one of several we’ve “adopted” over the years. In fact the ally one I lost was discovered on the Rochdale Canal several years ago...

With my birthday coming up in August Mags said she’d buy me a new one (I thought about getting her a set of saucepans for hers…), so I’m now the proud owner of a shiny new aluminium windlass, complete with steel jubilee clips to make it attractive to my magnet if I drop it again!

It got it’s first outing yesterday.


On the home front, we’re still waiting on the results of Mags’ CT scan, although they should be imminent. And Meg continues to make slow but positive progress. She seems better in control of her bladder now, although we still have the odd accident, mostly at night. She’ll be finishing her 2 week course of antibiotics early next week, so we’ll have to go back to Skipton by then for yet another vet visit.
I expect we’ll take 2 days again to head back, stopping below the locks maybe Saturday and moving on on Sunday or Monday. We’ll see…

Locks 3 (wow) miles 5¼

Weekly update…

That’s what it’s turning into at the moment. Nothing of any note to report, I‘m afraid.

We went off to Airedale Hospital on Tuesday for Mags’ scan, picked up and returned by Station Taxis out of Skipton, prompt and efficient too.
The scan went OK, but Mags got a bit fed up with the wait while she had to drink over a pint of water with the trace dye for the x-rays in it. She even tried to give some away to a chap who’d already drunk his! We’ve not heard anything back yet, I’ll give her GP a ring early next week if they’ve not been in touch.

Meg is slowly improving. She’s now on a different antibiotic, delivered by Sam the vet on Tuesday evening and resulting from the lab tests on a sample taken from her bladder a week ago. She’s a little drier through the day, only leaking once or twice and letting us know she wants to go out most of the time. But she’s worse at night when she’s fast asleep. Hopefully, when the infection clears up, she’ll have better control.

We came back into Skipton a couple of days ago. After that bright but cold weekend last week it’s turned mild again but damper. It’s got pretty busy as well, with quite a few hire boats out and about.

The Canada geese at Bradley seem to have had a population explosion recently…

Cloud on the hills, but a bit of brightness trying to break through.

We were joined on the service wharf by a steam-powered narrowboat, the shell only 6 years old but the actual engine over a century. It’s looking good on it…

It started life powering a steam tug in Canada, then was a museum for a bit before being allowed to deteriorate. The present owned rescued and restored it to it’s former glory.


The weather looks a bit better for next week, so we might go up to Gargrave for a few days now the locks are open again. We’ll have to come back by a week on Tuesday though for Meg to get checked over.

Locks 0, miles 2¾

From Summer into Autumn…

…and we’re still here! The weeks are starting to blur into each other now as we shuttle back and forth between Bradley and Skipton.
But this last week has seen a marked change, colder nights and damper days, and the leaves on the trees are starting to turn. We arrived in Skipton in July, and we’re now in October, with still no plan going forward.

A fine, still morning last week at Bradley.


Those old gateposts are just the right height for a good old scratch!

We moved back to Skipton last Tuesday, not the best of days, a bit damp and with a brisk breeze bowing in from the west.

We had visitors both Wednesday and Thursday though, and we needed provisions…

Val and John and dachsund Harry came over first, bringing a prepared lunch of home-made steak pie and veggies, so I just had to bung that in the oven for 45 minutes. They stayed till late afternoon before setting off for the trip back to Wales. Then we had three generations of Mag’s family arrive on Thursday, son Howard, his daughters Melanie and Zoe, and his granddaughter Laura. A fun afternoon, even with me spending 90 minutes replacing the screen on Mel’s iphone…
A word of warning in case you’re ever tempted to do the same. It’s extremely fiddly, the screws are very, very small and there’s a lot of them… Still, it worked after the surgery (big sigh of relief).

We took advantage of Howard (yet again) and had him run us up to Skipton Hospital for Mags to have a blood sample taken. This was a requirement prior to her having a CT scan next Tuesday. She’s not looking forward to that…

On Friday I took Meg to see the vet again to check her blood and urine and to discuss her meds. She’s doing pretty well, and an unplanned ultrasound scan showed no abnormalities apart from a thickening of her bladder wall, in fact her liver looks better. So we’ve dropped her daily steroid dosage from 10mg  to 5mg, now she’s not so thirsty she’s not drinking as much which has the knock-on effect of putting less pressure on her bladder, improving her incontinence. Samples taken by needle from her bladder have been sent off to a lab for analysis, but we seem to be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel now. We’ve just got to see what Mags’ scan reveals now.

We filled up with diesel and swapped an empty gas bottle at Snaygill Boats on the way into Skipton, had Fred Green deliver a load of smokeless fuel to us at the service wharf in town, and with a full water tank and rubbish and recycling disposed of we moved back out to Bradley yesterday.

Heading to the Springs Branch junction to turn around yesterday.

Busy on the moorings near Gallows Bridge.

Mags bringing Seyella through Snaygill Swing Bridge


The leaves are on the turn now…


Last night was the first proper frost we’ve had, with the temperature dipping to nearly zero. It was a splendid morning first thing, though.

View from our side hatch this morning…


…and out with Meg as the sun rose.


We’ve got a taxi booked to take us to Airedale General on Tuesday for Mags’ scan, then it’s a waiting game again till we hear from her GP.

Thanks for all the comments guys.

Hi Debby, pleased to hear that your Meg is now out of the woods.

Hi Jennifer and Peter. Hope you had a good summer out and about. That tentative plan to meet up near Trent Lock never really had a chance, did it!

Tom, Now that would be something to see! Still, it’d save some fuel and I could sneak a couple of pills into her morning brew!

KevinToo, Carol. Mags reckons she feels OK and doesn’t know what all the fuss is about. Imagine how she’ll feel if they do sort out a problem. I’ll not be able to hold her back! Here’s hoping…

Locks 0, miles 6½