SATURDAY
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| It's Grim Up North (see later) |
Although the sun kept
poking out during the day on Saturday, it remained on the cool side up
here. It was actually better that way as
we were cycling and walking during the day.
We cycled down to the
visitor moorings at the bottom of the Bank Newton flight where we padlocked the
bikes up for the day. On the way we were
looking out for good places to moor and also park a car. As we are going to be around here for a
couple of months we wanted to get an understanding of where the best spots
are. We will occasionally need the car
whilst we are here as we have some family events and also need to stock up on
large items like Buddy’s dog food. As a
general principle though, we will walk, cycle or use public transport rather
than the car.
We spent most of the day
with Mum and Dad and running errands around the village.
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| The river is very low in the village (we normally have all the FAM with us when we do stepping stones pictures) |
Sheep were in the road
when we were walking between Dad’s care home and Mum’s house which greatly
excited Buddy – I was so relieved we keep him on a lead. It seems there is a glut of curlews at
present as it felt we could hear them all the time we were walking or cycling
by fields. The other common bird is the
lapwing (properly known as the northern lapwing) which also has a lovely
call. The sound they make is like ‘pew-wit’
which is why they are also known as peewits.
Stephen, a keen
ornithologist friend who runs nature tours and holidays from his farm in AndalucÃa,
has been over in the UK for a week. He
posted some pictures of butterflies he saw in the south which made me quite
jealous. One of the things we must do
whilst up here is get out to the places to see species that only appear up in
the north, like the large heath. When
Stephen posted his butterfly pictures he remarked about the lack of swift
sightings and, it hadn’t occurred to me, but he’s right. We have only seen them since being in
Yorkshire and then only two. We will
keep a sharp look out for him.
When we got home, three
boats had moored near us and, selfishly I said it wasn’t fair spoiling our
spot. Karen pointed out it isn’t our stretch
of the cut and I know she’s right. Later
in the evening a fifth boat arrived and when Karen reacted, it was my turn to
tell her that it isn’t our cut 😊
We spent a while listing
out the things we want to do whilst we are up here, and it was obvious we are in
danger of running out of days ☹ Just a few of the important
things (to us) are:
- Attending a sheep dog trial (we have never been to one together)
- Climbing the three Yorkshire Peaks (we have only been up Pen-y-ghent)
- Camping with all the family (we always camp at Gordale Scar in the first week of August)
- Camping on our own (we always camp with the children when in Yorkshire 😉)
- See the production of, ‘Idle women of the wartime waterways’ (currently touring the north)
- Going to Gargrave show (we miss it every year as it is the week after our annual family camping trip)
- Butterflying (as I said earlier, it would be good to see some of the northern species)
- Having children up to stay at different times
SUNDAY
We had breakfast outside
on Sunday, as I expect most of the country did, and we planned on staying there
until mid-morning and then walking down to Gargrave to see my mum and dad. Even though it was early in the day we were
pleased to see the meadow browns were emerging – to us, that means summer is really here. There were also quite a few common blues
along the towpath where we were sitting.
After finishing breakfast,
we soon changed our minds – we had forgotten that it was an ‘It’s Grim Up North’
run and that runners would be constantly up and down the towpath today between
Skipton and a turning point about two miles beyond where we were moored. There were several events from 5km and 10km up
to marathon and ultra-marathon. They
must be mad, especially doing it in the sun.
There was no way we could
sit out on the chairs and have Buddy laying across the towpath, so we set off
for Gargrave a little earlier than planned.
We walked into the centre to check the situation with services (due to
our out of date guide book). I seemed to
remember seeing a pump out station in the centre but when we got there it was
just an Elsan disposal station (for portable cassette toilets). We had hoped to use the services when we
stayed in the village for a few days but would now have to change our plans.
We had lunch with my mum
and then went to see Dad and watch the World Cup football with him. Although we were brought up without a
television (my parents got one as soon as they retired 😊)
I doubt we very much would have been allowed to watch football if we had had
one. How times change.
On our walk back, we saw an
old stone in a field on the other side of the cut. It was directly opposite a cast iron milepost
showing Leeds 35 ¼ miles and Liverpool 92 miles, so we wondered if it was an
original milepost (the cast iron ones were installed in the 1890s).
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| My dad had telephoned to talk about the cricket |
Now we had found that
there was no pump out station in Gargrave we either have to go to Skipton and
back, which is a round trip of 15 miles and 24 locks, or turn around and go to
Barnoldswick and back, which is a round trip of 13 miles and six locks. We hadn’t planned on taking the boat to
Skipton for another few weeks, so we will take the shorter option, probably on
Tuesday. At least we will be able to
return to the same spot for a few more days 😊
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