Goose Incident

We were setting off towards the mooring for 'The Summit' yesterday teatime when this ruddy great goose flew directly into the low electricity cables over Alan and my Dad's heads.  They were standing perilously (and some would say ill-advisedly) near to the edge of the lock they were operating.  The poor goose missed the cable...with every part of its body except its neck which boinged off the wire with a noise that would've been comical had it not been so scary.  It fell out of the sky with an almighty thud (they're big aren't they, geese?) right next to Alan, missing his head by a little over two inches.  Then it waddled off, all confused and wiggly.  I know I haven't made it sound scary, but for a split second it was.  I tell you, it's non-stop high drama on the canals.

Anyway, very much in one piece, we have ended our 3 day sabbatical (or laze-about) from cruising and left Walsden (having completed the family-visit-set with my remaining two aunts and my nan), and today encountered our very first downward locks, having done nothing but climb since we bought the boat. The deeply exciting development we have had in the last forty eight hours is the sudden and unexpected onset of summer.  Last night from teatime onwards (after a downpour of near-biblical proportions complete with almighty thunder and lightening - which hit a nearby pylon causing it to crack in an orange and black explosion of fire and smoke**) and for all of today, we have had beautiful sunny, hot weather.  This, commented Alan and I to one another earlier as we ate Jaffa cakes on the stern, is what we signed up for.  We are currently moored up in Littleborough where another of my aunts lives (yes, I know, we are like muck, we are everywhere) and our port window (that's left hand side, land lovers) looks to the western sky where the sun has just set behind one of the last heaving rolls of the Pennines we will see.  We passed from Yorkshire into Lancashire earlier and I had a funny feeling I couldn't place as we cruised past the waymarker.  I later identified this feeling as one of guilt for not having taken more notice in school history lessons.  You know, War of the Roses and all that; I was passing not just a county boundary, but a piece of history.  People probably died and all that.  Most of my political history is cobbled together from my knowledge of Shakespeare which means it stops abruptly in the early 1600s, contains many inaccuracies due to old Shakey's liberal attitude to artistic licence, and is full of holes where I zoned out when reading his plays (let's face it, who has actually read every word of one of them?). 

Tomorrow we are aiming for Rochdale.  Or, should I say, we are aiming for the first nice bit we see after Rochdale.  No offence to any natives, but it's a bit of a hole, isn't it?  When we crossed The Summit this morning (at the profoundly un-Debs-ly hour of 8.30 am) two of the boaters who were crossing from the other side said "oooh, don't go that way, it's 'orrible".  I was already feeling a bit melancholy to be leaving such a beautiful and familliar spot anyway (in which I had also quite enjoyed snuggling into the tightly-knitted comfort blanket of my mum and dad for a bit) so this comment did not fill me with a huge amount of excitement.  We have just been spoilt by 20 miles of beautifully kept, tranquil and dramatic canal.  By contrast I am told that Rochdale's length of the canal is distinguished by its large - and let's hope artistically arranged - collection of floating rubbish ("weed-hatch-heaven" said the lock keeper.  I shan't explain that comment, it would only bore you.). So we'll speed through that and move ever onward to Manchester - which is bound to be cleaner isn't it?

Still it's a bit of a milestone, this; as of today Alan and I have crossed the Pennines on Little More.  From Thorne, Doncaster to Sowerby Bridge, Yorkshire in May then Sowerby to the Lancashire border in the past eight days. The tickle-y feeling I can feel in my tummy is, I think, a good dollop of pride in the achievement alond with a little dash of regret that this bit is over.

More anon...

**And where, dear reader, was Alan during this deluge?  Why, 800ft above sea level at the local Stoodley Pike monument dodging the lightening which was hitting ground around him while I sat on the moors 100ft below getting wet and fretting my arse off!   Check out the Pike - we climb it most times we visit these parts. It's got a good story to it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoodley_Pike

PS Here's a picture of what it looks like out of my port window.  (Which side is that, then....?)

Comments

[Green Fairy]

left! left! Do I get a prize? xx

[Rob Baillie]

Everyone knows it's the left, it's really easy to remember because, as any reasonably civilised person will tell you, the port is always passed to the left.

[Jon of Jon and Tracey]

For those of you wot are like me, a strong believer in port guzzling not passing, another way to remember it is PORT and LEFT both have the same number of letters. The sharp witted amongst you will note that this doesn't work for starboard, but you can't have everything...