Dear Everyone,
We’ve headed south - almost back to where we joined the canal to meet up with friends. They parked their motor home at a pub and we all met for dinner. Quite a few pubs now offer a small area for MHs - which allows the campers to have a few beers and stay for dinner, dogs are also catered for in many pubs sometimes with a doggy menu.
There are also a fair number of camping/MH sites alongside the canal. There are small ones, often a farmers field, with under 5 sites, and other much larger fancier ones with more amenities. We’ve passed a few permanent mobile home sites (oxymoron?) these are pre-fab buildings brought to the site. Often they have a mooring on the canal that accompanies them. They vary in the their terms of occupancy - some you can live in almost full-time but have to vacate for 2 weeks a year to satisfy the rules. Others are simply holiday homes.
I’m happy to say that pubs seem to be mostly normal (as compared to a year ago when things were only just relaxing), in general the standard of food has improved greatly over last year. It seems that staffing is still an issue and there are lots of Help Wanted notices around for hourly work.
Chugging back down the canal which is now pre-explored is a more enjoyable experience as we have a better idea of the shops available and where some of the quieter spots for mooring are. We met up with both NB Queen Hadassah in and NB Soul Mates they were the boats we crossed the Ribble with, they were still heading north. Being held up by lock issues, or awaiting a booked crossing are the best ways to actually meet and connect with other boaters. QH is booked for the same day as us going down - a week today.
Quite a few mallard ducklings around, but cygnets yet. Still stand at only one kingfisher sighting but plenty of herons, oystercatchers, plovers.
Having met up with our friends at the Hand and Dagger, we have now turned around and headed north again. Our aim is to have another go at the locks on the Glasson arm to get down the sea - there was a CRT report that they have attended to the leak and fingers crossed we’ll be able to get down this time. We are planning to rendezvous with J’s sister and BIL and their motorhome. They are going to park just outside Glasson Dock.
This will be our third transit of this bit of the canal and we were lucky enough to hit market day in Gargrave this time. We had just shopped at the butchers (a very busy little shop) when around the corner we found a market fish stand, so ended up freezing the lambs liver and had fresh plaice for supper instead. It always seems that it’s all or nothing. The advantage of repeating the route is that we can plan for farm shops, butchers, bakers, etc and not have to stock up with meals from a supermarket.
The weather continues middling, often slightly damp and cool.