Bartimaeus

It was a lovely day when we arrived at Huddersfield and as we went to go into town, Shane counselled against my fleece as he had been out and about checking the way ahead and was already hot. I wanted the use of the fleece pockets but removed my jumper below and and left the front unzipped. With Shane clutching his fleece, just in case, we set off.

Many cities have gentrified the canal side area, and there are glass buildings and restaurants around. In this area the industrial heritage was being retained. We set off back across the bridge that we had just come under. The old chimney was reaching like a steeple to the heavens above.

It was clear that bridge needed a lot of lifting before anything bigger than a canoe would fit under. It was quite surprising the lorries fitted on top. The pedestrians had a separate footbridge as there was very little spare space on the lift bridge.

Huddersfield didn’t seem like a major tourist town but it was strikingly placed with wooded hills rising up at each end of the main shopping area. The flagstones and honey coloured buildings reminded me of parts of Edinburgh New Town. Greeting travellers from the neo-classical columned railway station was Sir Harold Wilson, native of Huddersfield, striding away to The Lion Chambers opposite.

The next day was the booked morning passage through the lock 1E. We had seen another boat pass us the day before and expected it might be going through but as we moved forward we saw Amy seemed all locked up. From Shane’s chat to the staff who were going to work the lock for us, it became clear nobody else was booked to come through.

It was a stark change from the wide but slightly short locks we had been working. We moved forward into the deep narrow space and it was a rare chance to be at the front as we drove in, since I was neither driving nor locking.

There were a lot more locks ahead but only this one needed to be booked. As we moved forward each one had its own character, one on the side of a college was filled with people taking their lunch break in the sun, pretty much oblivious to the canal beside them. The workmen at the next one helped with the lock gate. They were clearing the brambles, which was much needed, but they also had a windlass so their work boat could come through so I  was able to hop on and one remarked they hadn’t seen a boat actually come through, just like someone had said about the lift bridge the day before. They warned us it was shallow ahead. 

From the modern college forecourt we moved to a lock where the exit to the lock was very narrow and limited. Shane stopped close to the lock but a little beyond the steps, but I could get to them by walking along the gunwale a step or two before reaching the uneven stone steps.

Shane swapped with me to get the chance to experience some of the locks. There was little danger of meeting other boats, but the shallow water, overhanging greenery and  bends in the narrow waterway, made for interesting driving. Driving into one of the locks I could feel the prop and rudder catching on items in the back of the lock. Something was also making it very hard for Shane to fully open the gate and there wasn’t a lot of spare space. When he shut the gate behind me I could see some items in the water. Two large branches and a bottomless  black bucket floated beside me and I  fished them out when we got to the top. The branches could stay on the grass. We will be looking for a bin for the bucket.

We reached the place where Shane had been told we could moor. As I came into the side I saw a shelf and it didn’t look good for coming in close at all. We were deciding whether to move back closer to the lock or move forward. We had just concluded that moving back was more likely to be suitable as designed for the locking party to get back on when a man from a nearby garden came to say if we wanted to moor, we had to avoid the area by the wall as there was a shelf and we might end up stranded on it if the levels dropped. We thanked him. The water was sufficiently low that we were not able to get above the shelf but we could see what he meant and continued backwards till the boat was beyond the wall where he had told us the shelf started. We thought no other boats would be needing that space as there was no bookings for 1E for a few days and the only boat we had seen, apart from the workboat, was facing the other way.

I continued with my watery tart hat, which like the waterway, was presenting challenge, uncertainty and some back tracking and adjusting to make satisfactory progress. It rained in the evening but stopped at bedtime and we heard an owl instead of pattering.

This morning it was raining agaIn when I got up. There was a proper old fashioned autumn vibe around with fallen leaves on the wet decking and red berries by the old mill building. The canal was needing a bit more water. We can have a slower start today, with a brighter patch of weather ahead and today we don’t have a morning appointment to keep.