Sunday 5th June
Sunday was a bit wet but as we had intended to stay at Todmorden it didn’t matter. We got up late, lazed around in the morning, took George for a walk back to the previous lock, which he seemed to enjoy despite there not being a pub involved and then went into town. We had a look round the Sunday Market, which was a bit of a car boot sale and went to the Factory Shop. Then we went to The Royal George which was a lovely little pub we hadn’t spotted before. When we got back in the afternoon I fell asleep, lazy mare! I didn’t actually see B and B at all!
Monday 6th June
After yesterday’s relaxation yet another action packed day has ensued today on the Rochdale Canal! We set off this morning at 8am and for a start did the 2 locks to get us to the water point in the town, passing 3 hire boats, the crew of one were having their breakfast, we could smell the bacon cooking on the way past. We watched B and B’s water filling while they went to Morrison’s, did our own and did the elsan, then when B and B returned we went to Morrison’s ourselves.
As we rounded the corner on our way back we were met with frantic gesticulating from Barbara to get a shift on as 1 of the hire boats had already gone in the guillotine lock and the other 2 were coming up the previous lock. She didn’t want them to get to the lock approach before us which would mean we would have to follow both lots of them all the way up the 9 locks to Walsden.
We quickly moved up to the lock approach and they came in behind. One lot was going to Walsden and turning round and the other lot was going up to Longlees Lock to go over the summit tomorrow as they are doing the Four Counties Ring. When we got to the next lock we had a lot of trouble shutting the bottom gates. There was something jammed underneath it and opening and shutting the gate didn’t shift it. Ken tried to get it with a boat hook but was unable to do anything. Although there was a shortage of water in the pound we had to let a lot of water rush through the lock to try and dislodge whatever it was. Eventually we managed to shut the gates and fill the lock.
We would have thought the 2 hire boats behind us would have caught up by then but there was no sign of them. We carried on to Walsden and were going to moor between locks 26 and 27 like we did on the way down but we couldn’t get anywhere near the bank this time! The hire boat in front had managed to moor because they were going to Grandma Pollard’s for lunch, but they were not really in to the bank. We decided to go up the next lock and see if we could moor there. After another struggle getting the gates closed we went up and managed to get fairly close to the bank so we stopped.
On Mondays Grandma Pollard’s closes at 3-30pm so B and B decided to go for lunch. Ken and I didn’t really want to have fish and chips for lunch so we decided to take George to The Cross Keys and cook our own dinner later on. Unfortunately The Cross Keys, despite having a sign outside saying they opened every day, was closed. George, who doesn’t understand ‘closed’ was very disappointed! We put him back on the boat and went off to The Mason’s Arms which we had been to last time we were here. We took George there last time but as we had already taken him to the closed pub and back and we were moored a bit further away from the Mason’s Arms this time it would have been too far him to go, shame.
B and B joined us when they had finished their lunch. We were hungry so we decided to have a sandwich at the pub. They were extremely cheap – £1-80, even cheaper if you had a pint and a packet of crisps as well – £4-50 for the lot. When they arrived we got two rounds each which made them really, really cheap! It was about 2pm by this time so of course we now don’t want the cottage pie we were going to have for dinner!
Tomorrow we are going up to Longlees Lock which is where we have to wait to go back over the summit on Wednesday. It will then be down hill again – all the way to Manchester!
