Heading Home

Apologies for the state of these pics, by the way. With the death of the trusty EOS we are reduced to using the camcorder on single shot. High quality optics and high capacity data processing it is not.

Now that we are done with the Huddersfield Narrow Canal we can link back up with Dave and Fran (and Bonnie, of course) for some lock pairing. The weather returns to overcast and raining. Young M Silverwood has been promised a chance to steer when we're on a wide bit even though he's not quite tall enough to see over the cabin when standing in the steering position. We have really only one days sailing to do but 2 days in which to do it, so we decide to do it in 2 mornings, the first as far as Brighouse, the 2nd 'home' (well, home for Dave and Fran, who are giving their boat back on Sunday night; we have ours till Monday morning so we will moor in Salterhebble for the traditional Murder Mystery Night, leaving Dad with a 40 minute, lock-free chug to the Sowerby Bridge Basin on Monday Morning).

These last days enjoyable though we've done these bits of canal before. We especially like the chance to do the River sections where you can open up the engine a bit after 11 days of not much more than idling, feel the clamour of the engine, get a lovely "V" of bow wave going, blow some cobwebs out. OK, you're still only doing about 5 knots but Dad enjoys it and so, apparently, does Dave on Oxford.

Here we get M up on deck and give him some instructions and help. He's hampered, as I said, by not really being able toi see ahead but he does OK, clinging onto the tiller like grim death as the prop tries to "walk" the stern to starboard. We carve a rather meandering course up the river but we don't hit anything and he throroughly enjoys it. Everyone cheers as he stands down and hands the boat back to Dad as they come in to the berth below the lock out of the river (Calder) back into canal land.

At Salterhebble on the Sunday we bid a fond farewell to Dave, Fran and Bonnie having exchanged email addresses and promises to swap photos where we've pictured each other after our various camera failures. They've been a real blast to travel with and made the holiday even more enjoyable. Good Luck you guys. Perhaps we'll meet again; who knows?

Our boat becomes a mad frenzy of repacking ready for tomorrow and some last silly games and singing with the little ones before they get packed off to be and the serious business of Murrrrrder can begin... Aye! Mrs Silverwood dunnit - poisonned him with belladonna in a mushroom risotto, y'know, just like Lucretia Borgia.

It's always the quiet ones!

Deefs

PS, on the final morning, last half hour of the holiday, Mum finally sees a kingfisher after 6 years of trying. She had come to believe that they did not in fact exist, and were only ever seen by believers, a bit like ghosts. "A Mythical Bird" she would counter to every suggestion, and it had become a boating holiday in-joke. Well now she has.