A tale of two C-Katherines

An early start today to get back to York so we could spend time with Catherine, and get Katherine back to Birmingham – it’s Catherine with a ‘C’ or Katherine with ‘K’ – most confusing!

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A bit of a disaster occurred this morning. Barry had uploaded his memory card photos from the previous two days and we’d then deleted the file. Unfortunately it then turned out that there wasn’t sufficient disc space available to save them and the computer wiped the file! OMG! We’ve been hovering on the red for a while, Barry takes so many pictures each day bless him, and it obviously decided it’d just had enough. So he spent much of today downloading a file to recover them, and consequently I did most of the driving back to York. This wasn’t a problem except that the weather man had got the forecast wrong once more, and rather than sunny periods we had heavy showers, so it wasn’t the most pleasant journey.

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Despite the weather the sunflowers are truly blooming now

Sunflowers and strawberries share the same home

However it was a very pretty stretch of river and in between showers, Kath joined me. It was a very calm day, and as we were driving along watching herons, moorhens, kingfishers, flowers, trees and the like, we felt it was as if we were the only people in the world! Very calming.

It looks like a water tower, close to Beningbrough Hall

Linton Lock & pub

The weir at Linton Lock

We were reliably informed by a local man that the power company is constructing a hydro plant there, building a temporary bridge over the canal which would close it for some months

Entering the large lock

Huge gates with steering wheels to turn to release the paddles - first time we've seen that!


The lucious lock girls!

A 'real' house boat!

The rickerty toll bridge at Ardwark

A golf course of two halves - joined by a footbridge across the River Ure

Assistance with the lock from two strong Polish men who just happened to be around

No, please don't open the gates yet!!

Captain Kath

Luckily the sunflowers are the dwarf variety

Arched bridges - hurrah, we're back on a canal for a short while!

One of the last two locks before Ripon, very slow to fill

We made it to York in good time and met up with Catherine, Amy and Katie. We had a good time eating ice-creams and chatting, while Barry cycled to the York home-brew shop for some valuable supplies!

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We then took everyone for a ride up the river and back, which made the girls very giggly and excitable; waving frantically to anyone who was watching, and ringing the bell as often as allowed! They're so cute bless them.

Little Katie & Amy, future lock girls!
Note Captain Barry Birdseye's beard is almost fully grown now, but we're still not sure if we like it!


One of the pubs Tim & Barry visited on Saturday
They had a live band playing, Tim knew some of their musicians

On the way out of York, the old warehouses which are now riverside pubs & restaurants

The King's Arms - the flood pub

A new visitor to York coming through Skeidergate Bridge

More boats messing around on the river ...

Fabulous turrets on the bridge

This bridge looked like Sydney Harbour Bridge!

Little and large

Fullford Hall, very nice

Back to Naburn on a balmy August evening, past the Archbishop's bungalow (aka Palace!)once again!

So many moorings around Bishopthorpe and Naburn, a variety of posh and derelict!

Naburn lock

All lit up at night-time

Almost a full moon tonight

The lock we'll be entering tomorrow

Kath caught her train home after her whirlwind three days on board, and we continued back to Naburn where we're ready for the tide at 0915 in the morning and onwards to Selby Lock – I’m not sure I’ll sleep much tonight with my terrible ‘doom and gloom’ attitude to ‘what ifs …’! The reassuring thing is that Barry got to talk to Selby lock-keeper this morning and was given instructions on how to negotiate the lock safely, so fingers crossed there’ll be no more crashing into walls or worse …

The end of the Northern line

Some of Barry's York photos from his chilled weekend 'home alone' ...

The busy River Ouse in York Centre

Clifford's Tower shots (thanks for the free entry pass Catherine!)

View of the York Museum from Clifford's Tower - named after Roger De Clifford who, folllowing the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322, was hung in chains from its battlements

The clock tower on the museum

Chimney pots everywhere

The River Foss which meets the River Ouse in York

Just liked the colours

View of York Minster

Another view of the River Foss

A mostly very well-kept city, though Barry did inform a young man doing a survery that they need to empty the rubbish bins a bit more frequently!

Quaint sweet shop

A large proportion of Yorkians (what is someone from York called I wonder?!) cycle to and around the city

Breathtaking every time ...

Oh dear, is it crumbling?

Barry keeps finding these erections in front of Cathedrals! (a Roman column found under the Minster in the 1970's)

Constantine the Conqeuror I presume, looking conquered?

Inside the Minster

Looking up the Minster

Horsing around at the Minster

Sneaking a peek at the Minster

No, please, not more Minster ...

A little church very near the Minster but not many visitors!

The old and the obsolete!

Part of the city wall

A virgin balloon in flight

The very ornate Lendal Bridge - you can only see the angel from the river!

York Boat trips - eight pounds a ride up and down the river!

The King's Arms pub (the flooding pub) through the arch. Very cheap beer there

The Red Boats - also for hire

Almost like a scene from Paris

The steam train on the way out from York, with about ten very full carriages

The ruins of the Norman Church in the museum gardens

There was some poor wedding photographer chasing around after this bridal party, Barry's sympathy goes out to him!

The grey squirrels were very friendly around here

He would've taken food from my hand I'm sure, if I'd had some

Kath and Sandra chilling in the museum gardens after a morning in York

Kath looking gorgeous in one of her delightful weekend purchases from Bath!

We had a busy boating day, cruising up to Ripon and back to Boroughbridge! We need to be back in York tomorrow afternoon for Kath’s train and hopefully to meet up with Catherine again on the boat.

There were eight locks to negotiate on this part, four on each journey, with extremely heavy gates once more and deep, slow filling locks. The strange thing about the locks up here is that due to their location, when I unwind the paddles I can’t see when they open or how much water is flooding out which is a little scary! But thankfully we made it through without any mishaps. Part of the journey took us onto the Ripon Canal, which is the most northerly canal in England’s 2,000 mile waterways system.

Ripon is a very attractive town, it’s a shame we only had a few hours to explore. We also missed the Hornblower – every night at 9pm a horn is blowed at the four corners of the Obelisk in Ripon Market Place to ‘set the watch’. The tradition hasn't been broken since the 15th century! This ceremony celebrates the time in the middle ages when the first citizen, the Wakeman, was responsible for crime prevention in the city from 9pm to dawn. Isn’t that an amazing tradition to continue?

Ripon has a splendid Cathedral, as do most English cities; well actually it can’t be called a 'City' unless it has one! Despite them all being spectacular to look upon, they all sort of start to merge into one after a while. We had a quick look-see in the doorway and took a couple of shots from outside, but that was our limit. If you want to learn more, go to: http://www.riponcathedral.org.uk/. An interesting snippet is that there is a Saxon Crypt inside, built by Saint Wilfrid in 672, and it's the oldest existing one in England.

We also visited the Courthouse Museum as they didn’t charge us an entry fee due to there only being 8 minutes left till closing time! It was full of the history pertaining to convicts being transported to Australia (160,000 apparantly!) in the early 19th century, so was fascinating to read in the time we had. The uncomfortable part was reading about the dreadful behaviour of these people to the Aboriginals in their homeland. The English brought with them alcohol and disease, things that Aboriginies had not previously encountered; subsequently many of them perished. The ‘invaders’ then built walls and towns and chased away the ‘vicious natives’ – bloody English, they really do have a lot to answer for in my opinion.

A swift about turn late afternoon, and back to Boroughbridge for an overnight mooring – a good day’s work for the lock girl!

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Barry's a little behind (and a very cute behind he has if I may say so!) on the photo uploads, so today's will be on tomorrow! We have lots of visitors over the next couple of weeks so we are giving them our time and fitting in the blog where we can, so please perservere with us ...

Back blogging after a wild weekend off!

I’m back on board the boat now along with my eldest sister, Kath, following a funtastic hen weekend. My two amazing daughters did the most incredible job of organising the whole thing, ‘tasteful not tacky’ was the theme - thank goodness! Lots of lovely food, drink, frivolity and treats with female family and friends. A teeny weeny bit of squeemishness at the tiara, sash, feather boa and magic wand; but you can’t have a hen weekend without the hen being noticeable can you; otherwise what’s the point?!

Being presented with the weekend's programme - 'Sandi's Spalicious Hen Weekend'

We had a tapas meal on Friday night, a spa at the baths on Saturday morning including a gift of two relaxing treatments (one involving steaming hay and the other hot oil!), some games on the Saturday afternoon, a Greek meal and a bit of a boogie Saturday night, and a shopping expedition on the Sunday. Absolutely fabulous!!

The hen and her chicks (l to r):

Kath, Sarah, Jamie, Lisa, Viv, Linda, Sandra, Amanda, Kim & Sam

Narrowboats on the river in Bath (I can't get away from them!!)

Pultney Bridge in the background

Barry seems to have had a good time without me, doing lots of touristy things in York but most importantly doing a pub crawl on Saturday night with Tim, Catherine’s (second cousin once removed!) husband.

This morning we had another quick look around York, as Kath hasn’t been here for many years, then we set off in the sunshine towards Ripon. Kath had a go at driving and did very well, then did a spot of boat-top sunbathing in between cloudy spells!

Our journey today took us to a place called Boroughbridge, not far from Ripon. We had two very large and cumbersome locks to get through which were hard going after all the mechanical ones we’ve had over the last few weeks. At the second one, two lovely Polish men appeared and opened and shut both gates for me – wonderful!!

Barry caught up with Dave from the narrowboat ‘yesdear’ at Boroughbridge and got some welcome advice about some boat maintenance.

We had a walk around Boroughbridge in the evening, a very quaint place - the 44th of some 400 settlements built by the Romans and their successors between 1066 and 1348, as part of their plan to unite the new kingdom (maybe that's why it's called the United Kingdom??). We found a pub with a quiz night, but it was half way through so we couldn't join. We did stay and listen though, a very serious and tedious affair, totally different to the enjoyable one we went to a couple of weeks ago! Kath even fell asleep it was so boring and slow!!

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More photos from Barry's weekend break (!) will follow shortly ...