Jorvik at last!

This morning at 0730, the sun was shining brightly and it looked as though it was going to be a glorious day. But it was not to be, by 1030 there was a thunderstorm and the sky fell down and rained all its clouds on us! We commenced our journey an hour or so later, hoping for a dry one, but Barry got soaked once more just outside of York. Ah well, we arrived at last and although the river level is fairly high, it still looks fairly safe – for now!

It seems that Barry is not the only one in strife for the inaccurate predictions, today’s headlines are all slating the weathermen who promised the British a ‘BBQ summer’! Oh dear, I don’t think so! Maybe a BBQ June if you’d got your skates on, but certainly not in July and disappointingly it is reported that August is looking likely to be a wet month too. Still, there’s always the possibility of an Indian summer in September …

One of the many tour boats that cruise up and down through York

This one was collecting people from the Naburn Lock where we'd moored

On the way to York after the first thunder storm of the day had passed

Another boat heading away from York amidst all the cruisers

An unusual sculpture on top of the railway bridge at Bishopthorpe

Some of the permanent moorings left a little to be desired

These were moored around Bishopthorpe

'The Palace' home to the Archbishop of York. Very humble looking residence - not!

Lots of boats use the river

All shapes and sizes

The Millenium footbridge on the outskirts of York

The old Dockyards

The Kings Arms on the left, called the 'Flooding Pub' because of the number of times the rivers come through it

Lovely old buildings with arched exits onto the river

The angel adorning the middle of Lendal Bridge

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We’re moored up right next to the railway bridge, about a 10 minute walk to the station, so we took a walk there and picked up my tickets for tomorrow’s travel to Birmingham and Bath. A short stroll along the wall and we were into the centre. We decided that the Jorvik Viking Museum sounded interesting and we’d splash out and pay an entry fee for once. It wasn’t what we’d expected, more of a Disneyland ride than anything, but the exhibition of artefacts at the end was interesting. As my mum and dad were originally from the North of England (Sunderland and Huddersfield respectively), then my original roots may be from the Danes who dominated this area of the country.

The view from the railway bridge towards Lendal Bridge. Northern Pride fourth along

One of the tour boats. We get a short snippet of commentary as they go past, sadly always the same bit

York Station, when first built was the largest in the world

You can walk around the old city wall which takes you right around York

Interesting looking building

Sandra spotted "The Scream" face in one of the paving stones on the wall

Flower bike, wouldn't be too comfortable had thorns on the seat

Clock on the 'St Martin-Le-Grand' church. The clock was originally installed in 1668, but has been restored several times since.

'The Three Tuns' pub in the centre of York

Not sure what this is all about. Might have been the sex trade street!!

So much of York is like this

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We had an amble through the Shambles, a gaze at the majesty of York Minster, then back to Sainsbury’s for a spot of shopping to keep Barry in food and beer for his weekend alone.

Lovely old sweet shop in The Shambles

The Shambles where these two houses are almost touching

View of York Minster between the buildings

Statue on the corner of bookshop alley

Some views of the impressive 'York Minster'

This evening we were picked up by Tim and Catherine dinner and wine at their home in small place south of York called Bishopthorpe. The Archbishop of York has a palace there, one of only two Archbishops in the country we're reliably informed. It certainly looked palacial.

Katie and Amy, a couple of livewires

Katie, Tim, Amy and Catherine

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We had an awesome evening getting to know one another and meeting their children Amy and Katie, two gregarious, giggly, beautiful blonde girls. The food was great and the champagne, wine and port flowed far too freely! We decided not to catch the last bus home but got a taxi back to the boat in the wee small hours. Barry will meet up with Tim again over the weekend.

Catherine gave me a list of some of my ancestors going back as far as 1620 which is just amazing! I now know that we are second cousins once removed, and the name of my 8th great grandfather on my father's mother's side (!) was called John Drake and my 8th great grandmother Ann Wright. She has got an incredible amount of information, it was faascinating.

Tomorrow I'm off to Bath for my English hen weekend and returning to York late on Sunday with my eldest sister Katherine who's coming to do the river to Ripon with us, until Wednesday evening.

Northern Pride - the love boat!

True to forecast, the rain has persisted it down heavily today. After a lovely cooked breakfast including bacon, eggs and speciality Yorkshire sausages, we said goodbye for now to mum and dad and went through the lock just after 1230hrs – I had my life-jacket on and the anchor at the ready! Barry got me to practice picking it up a couple of times just in case I needed to throw it in the river; boy it's heavy, my guess would be 15kg (about 3 large babies, being a midwife that's how I judge the weight of things!). It’s a breathtaking drop down from the Selby canal and I’m not looking forward to us driving back into the lock from the tidal Ouse on the return journey!

Irene & Don

The line up of boats across the canal from us at Selby Lock

The sunflowers are poking out, but hesitating because of the lack of sun!!

Able seaman Sandra all set to go


Is that farewell, or au revoir


That's what we've got to aim for on the way back

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I took the first shift at the helm while Barry tried to load yesterday’s photos onto the blog with limited success. He took over after an hour and a half as I was getting very cold and damp, and we both had some welcoming hot soup.

The swing railway bridge at Selby

Next is the swing road bridge. Wouldn't want to be caught in a traffic jam on the bridge when they needed to open it!!

This mill is still working. No 'trouble' here!

An old wharf on the river

The swing bridge at Cawood on the Ouse. Obviously some of the boats aren't too accurate at getting through with all the protection
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The Ouse is a large tidal river, with many logs floating down which it's best to avoid if possible! I always think our little boat looks so lost on the big rivers, bless it. We arrived at Naburn lock around 1530 and moored up just on the other side, it was just too wet and cold to continue up to York today! Bloody English summer!! Where did Barry’s promised heatwave go?

The twin locks at Naburn. Weir to the side, we went in the left lock

We did get a few hardy spectators
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After a wet and chilly day, we had a cosy night in and one of the things we did was to google 'Northern Pride'. We were astounded to find that our blog was 7th in over 4 million possibles for the term. A rather intriguing finding was the 'Northern Pride' is actually held in Newcastle and it is the LGBT (lesbian/gay/bi and trans) annual festival of the north (http://www.northernpride.org.uk/)! Hilarious! Barry thinks we may have hit on a winner - another hit was for the loveboat of 'Lesbilicious - the web's tastiest lesbian magazine' an event organised recently by this organisation for Northern Pride, though unfortunately it was cancelled at short notice for some reason. Check it out on: http://www.lesbilicious.co.uk/loveboat/

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So does that mean we're more or less likely to sell our boat with such a name? Post your thoughts in the comments box below, or send us an email!

Our mooring this evening - Sandra chats to a Scottish couple who were admiring the boat and wishing they had the money to buy it

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This evening there was the most spectacular sunset, fingers crossed that it means a sunny day tomorrow ...

It looks like the sky is on fire!

A life-saving visit to the shop

We're preparing to go back onto a tidal river, so visited Selby Marina this morning. It’s a bit sad how exciting it is shopping in Chandlery’s now rather than clothes shops! It was a very fruitful visit, though not for the budget. We bought some better fenders (which stop the side of the boat bashing against the side when we’re moored up), and the crucial purchase was a modern life-jacket for me as the ones we inherited with the boat are ancient, they may've been with Northern Pride since 1989! This one has a special saline canister in it so that if you fall overboard, especially if you bang your head on the way, once the jacket becomes submerged, it inflates and turns you turn over and subsequently you don’t die! Or at least that's the theory that I hope never to test. Fifty quid very well spent in my view. Barry chose not to have one, he believes he's invincible, and I hope he's correct! We don’t really need it on the canals as most of them are so shallow you could stand up in them.

We watched some boats head out onto the River Ouse today to see what we'll have to go through

All wearing life jackets like Sandra just bought, even the lock keeper

The car park was just behind the wall on the right of the photo

All the way down to the Ouse - would you trust your young child on a bike here?!

Ropes away, onto the river ...

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Luckily we found a neat place for my mum and dad to park their car. At Selby Lock there's a car compound at the end of the towpath opposite the lock-keepers cottage for the long-term moorers, and he was happy for them to park there overnight so it would be safe and secure.

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My parents arrived mid-afternoon and we were held up briefly by the local youths who'd caused the relief lock-keeper trouble yesterday. We got chatting to them and they invited themselves onto the boat for a look around, they were OK really bless them, just bored as I'd thought. One of them even decided he was going to buy the boat (we've put for sale notices up now) as his granny was leaving him some money - shame for him, I think he was about 15! We've had quite a bit of interest since placing 'For Sale' signs on the windows a couple of days ago, but I think secretly neither of us wants to sell it as it's such a lovely boat and we'd love to return and do this again next year!

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We eventually ejected the kids and had a trip into Selby and a walk round the inside of the Abbey – but just a short one as it shut at 4pm and we didn't get there until 3.30. Then a stroll around the shops and back to the boat for tea and cakes, spaghetti bolognaise and later on a movie 'The Game' on the computer (we don't have a TV - well that's a lie, we have one in a cupboard under the stairs that we choose never to take out!).

Another visit to the abbey in Selby - currently being cleaned up and the town-square in front is having new paving laid, it'll look very smart when completed

Beautiful interior

Sandra and a fake Benedictine monk.

Their days began at 0200 and they went to bed at 1715 - can you imagine that?

The weather's turned very changeable (hardly surpsing for England!), I think we had the best of the summer in 'flaming June'; not sure if there’s any good warmth and sunshine left to come but it certainly doesn’t feel like it at the moment.

The forecast for the next few days is rain, rain and more rain; so we’ll have to see where we can moor up that's not likely to flood when we start our journey into York tomorrow.

Dragonflies and terrapins!

We said farewell to Jenny and David early this morning and set off towards Selby. Passing back through Knottingley and the industrialisation around here, we turned left onto the River Aire and shared the next three locks with a couple from Stoke-on-Trent who spend six months of the year living on their narrowboat and the remainder of the time in their house. It’s quite enlightening how many people do this, whether their country of residence is England or the Southern Hemisphere, and one day we hope to be able to afford to do it annually too!

The two men worked the locks today, as we were back to manual ones with very heavy gates – but the girls role of driving out of the locks and getting the boys back on board was quite a challenge as well with only tiny pontoons to get to. Still, everyone managed to get through and back on board without any mishaps.

Our route after the River Aire was the Selby Canal – very picturesque, though quite weedy again but not shallow like the Chesterfield so long as you kept to the centre of the waterway. It was also very clear so you could see the bottom for most of the journey which is quite unusual for a canal, because it's fed from a river at each end.

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The canal-life was spectacular — teeming with tiny, iridescent blue dragonflies, along with the occasional huge brown one mimicking a miniature helicopter. Barry noted some very large fish swimming around, and even saw a terrapin at one stage sitting happily on a piece of wood watching the boats go by! We’d read at West Stockwith Lock that terrapins may be around, as people who’d had them as pets and got fed-up have been putting them into the canals and rivers in the area, and they've survived and thrived! Not such a good thing as they destroy some of the natural habitat of the waterways it seems, though heaven knows how they'll get rid of them now.

The Selby Canal

Not the sharpest of photo's, but amazing to see nonetheless!!

Arriving at Selby early afternoon, I went into town to check out the shops while Barry continued grinding on the front of the boat ready for de-rusting and painting. We need to find somewhere suitable for my mum and dad to park their car tomorrow night when come to stay with us. It’s not the poshest of areas around here, so it’s a bit of a worry. We were told that some kids had been untying the mooring ropes of the narrow-boats over the weekend; bless their cotton socks.

A mirror image of the gateway to Selby on the canal

While I was in town Barry said the lock-keeper came and tried to move on some young lads who were fishing and playing around the nearby swing bridge. They weren’t having any of it and just gave him lots of cheek, so he called the police and the local bobby came along on his bike and moved them along. They’ll probably be back again tomorrow! The likelihood is that their mum and dad are at work and they just have to find things to do with no money so they just hang around looking for mischief, as most young children are want to do given half a chance!

A short time later, the policeman returned and took Barry's name and number (well my number as Barry rarely turns his phone on!) in case he needed a statement at a later date. He'd been round to the boys grandma's home and she'd given him more abuse than the boys! No wonder they're the local trouble-makers, such a shame. He also said that the boys had accused the lock-keeper of hitting them (of course he didn't!). What is this country coming to? There was a poor teacher recently who was driven so crazy by the behaviour of some of his pupils that he actually ran one of them over. One can certainly have sympathy with him.

Checking out the humongous lock at Selby - we're going onto the River Ouse soon, another tidal one with a difficult to negotiate lock on the return journey, OMG!!!!

The River Ouse from town - the ancient railway bridge which would have been a swing bridge incredibly enough, but not sure if it still is

Some delightful shots of Selby Abbey at dusk ...

If you look closely above the doorway you'll notice three swan's - Benedict had a vision of these landing on the river and that's why the Benedictine's built the Abbey! (www.selbyabbey.org.uk)

The main street in Selby was quite expansive with a good deal of pubs, though quite a few of them were shut down as is the theme we're finding. Someone told us in Eggborough that 52 pubs across England are closing each week, not sure how accurate that may be but it looks possible from what we've seen.

Looks like the jolly Bachus, Greek God of wine, at the Londesborough Arms Hotel in town


The Abbey from the High Street with a crumbling momumental erection in the foreground!

Across the swing bridge from our mooring in Selby, with a dramatic cresent moon - if you look very closely there's a little boy swinging on the bottom corner and a cow jumping over


The swing bridge where the little blighters were fishing and causing mayhem!

The best of both worlds

Today we headed towards Selby as we'll meet up with my mum and dad for the night there, on Tuesday, on their way up to High Force near to Durham for their 54th wedding anniversary.

The current canal is a ‘broad’ one, with lots of large, swanky cruisers around who seem to not feel the need to slow down when they drive past moored narrowboats and subsequently we rocked and rolled all over the place on our mooring this morning. We're certainly noticing increasingly how England remains such a 'class' based society, and from what we've seen it's definitely the ones in the lower to middle classes who have the most style and friendliness! There’s a small element of that in New Zealand, but thankfully it’s a minority, which is so refreshing, and one of the reasons I choose to live there.

A cruiser motoring away leaving us rocking

In case anyone needs another power station photo!

The landscape is just covered with them here

Different scenery this time, a colliery (coal mine) at Knottingley

A line up of barges for the colliery

A boat building yard at the junction of the Aire & Calder canal and the River Aire


A dramatic flour mill squeezed between the canal on one side and the River Aire on the other

The lock onto the Aire River. We'll go through on the return from York
Guess what's in the background?!

A massive lock built for the big 700 ton barges

This was brought back to us once more after we moored up at a place called Ferrybridge, not far from Knottingley. We took a detour as we were informed that there was a good Morrison's supermarket close to the canal. However when we investigated from the mooring, all we found was some quite distressed looking buildings (mainly council houses), boarded up shops, and the odd skinhead type bloke walking around with his four-pack of Fosters and Alsatian dog, who should’ve looked quite menacing but actually appeared fairly harmless. We did, however, discover a local grocery store with a limited stock of provisions and got what we needed there - cash purchases only mind you!

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The majority of live-aboard narrowboaters are great people who seem to have discovered the meaning of life, and are therefore choosing to live at a much slower pace whilst savouring their magic moments. However, they're obviously mostly folks in their later years who can afford not to work, or to work intermittently, so that would make a difference to their attitudes I suspect. They've also learned to survive happily on a limited budget, something we're becoming accustomed to now.

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We thought we’d then turn around and go a bit further towards Selby, but Barry decided he’d do a bit of grinding on his new rear hatch first as we were in quite an isolated place. As he was preparing this, another narrowboat moored up and of course Barry got chatting to them and found out they were from Nelson, on the north of the South Island of New Zealand!

Jenny & David from Nelson

Originally from England, they'd lived in New Zealand since the late 1970’s, had bought their boat a few years ago and been coming back to England for the summer since then. There’s obviously a number of ex-pats who do this regularly – who choose not to live and work in England for a variety of reasons but still feel a need to come back to visit, whilst retaining the option of living in the Southern Hemisphere. I suggest it’s called ‘having the best of both worlds’!

So we had a very enjoyable evening on each others boats (is that called a boat crawl?) eating nibbles, drinking wine and Barry’s home (boat?!) brew; and then having a Sunday dinner (that's tea in English terms!) of beef, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Marvellous! What a joy this living spontaneously is.