Friday 27th May
We’re going down (no not West Ham, that was last week!) I mean we’ve gone over the summit and are now descending towards Todmorden. Today we have come a lengthy 2.5 miles, 11 locks (one of which was single boats only) and 1 swing bridge and are moored within spitting distance of Grandma Pollard’s Famous Chippy, more of which later.
The weather has been really quite chilly, it did remain dry (almost) but glimpses of the sun were few and far between. We left Summit this morning at 8-30am crossing the border from Lancashire to Yorkshire at lock 36 and arrived at Walsden, having stopped for water at lock 28, by about 12-30pm. I should mention that on the way we passed a wood yard where they were making pallets. Why am I telling you this? Well, we discovered yesterday that to do the Calder and Hebble navigation, our next destination provided we can fit in the short locks, we need a handspike. What is that? It is essentially a piece of wood 3″ by 2″ and 3 ft long and it is used to operate the paddle gear instead of a windlass. Hard wood is best but in the absence of any wood at all Barbara went off and procurred a couple of bits of, albeit, soft wood from the pallet makers. They didn’t even charge her for it, bonus! We’re hoping that as we only intend to do the Calder and Hebble once these bits of wood will suffice.
So we arrived at Walsden about 12-30pm, it then took us nearly half an hour to bang the mooring spikes in! The ground here is full of stones and we just couldn’t find a way through them. Eventually, by this time practically on the brink of a seizure, Ken managed to get the spikes in and we tied up. We started off in a nice cleared space on the bank but we couldn’t get in to the bank or we couldn’t get the spikes in so by the time we had moved along the bank trying to do both we ended up at an overgrown bit! A quick bit of ‘gardening’ then ensued to clear a path through the bracken from the cratch to the bank. A certain amount of dog poo picking was also required, aaargh!
By this time it was pub time and we went off to The Cross Keys via the village shop (The Times and 15 for the price of 10 Cadbury’s chocolate mini rolls, couldn’t resist). B and B joined us in the pub and we decided we may go there for a meal tomorrow night as we are running short of supplies – any excuse!
On the way back from the pub we investigated Grandma Pollard’s Famous Chippy. It has been there for 90 years and run by Tony Pollard, her son, since 1957! Later on we returned for 2 large haddock and 1 chips and two meat pies, for which Grandma Pollard’s is also famous. No we haven’t eaten the pies as well, we are saving them for tomorrow, honest! There were also on display some extremely large and very delicious looking vanilla custard slices but we managed to control ourselves. I don’t know if B and B also managed to control themselves but I suspect not! Fortunately we have lost the chance to get any because the chippy is now closed and it doesn’t open at weekends. Doesn’t open at weekends I hear you cry? They are so busy Mon – Fri they don’t need to open weekends and anyway, according to a notice up in the shop, Tony needs a rest at the weekends!
We are a sickly old bunch today – Barry has a bad back, Barbara has a bad foot, Ken’s hands are a bit stiff (although his knee is better) and George has cut his paw. I’m just my usual decrepit old self. We are staying here tomorrow so we can all have a rest! Mind you we are going to try to get George out for a walk so he won’t be having a rest.
