What to do, where to go?

We’ve read, seen and heard a lot about the cost to people of the recent flooding, but the wildlife must have suffered, too. I wonder how many foxes, badgers and voles have drowned? And how many fish left high and dry as the water went down?

The clean-up starts at Leeds Lock…

…but the river is on the rise again!


It did drop down to just above the green on the level markers, but it’s well up in the red again after these last few days of rain. Even if it dropped enough for safe navigation, we’d still not be going anywhere though. The word is that most of the locks on the river heading south will need work, in a lot of cases the electrics were swamped by the flood waters. And now there’s a stoppage just below us as they’re starting on flood prevention works (a clear case of horse and stable door!) between River Lock and Leeds Lock till January 24th!

We’re getting a little stir-crazy here, although a two-day visit from friends Arthur and Wendy helped a lot.

We can’t go back up to Gargrave, there’s a stoppage just this side of Shipley for refurbishment of a swing bridge that’s likely to last until mid-March, and another just out of Skipton. But we’ve decided not to stay here any longer. So on Friday we’ll be heading back up the locks, out of Leeds on the canal. Three days cruising will see us at Apperley Bridge, and that’s about as far as we can go for the duration. We’ll stop for a few days in Rodley on the way.
Come the end of January and the (probable) finish of the flood defences, we’ll review the situation. If the Aire and Calder is operational again by then and the river is behaving itself, we’ll more than likely come back down and continue our journey south. Unless we get frozen in…

TTFN.