Good travelling, good food and lousy football.

Before we left this morning we hauled up the crayfish traps and had caught enough crayfish to make a meal for us all so I started the day with two buckets full of water and crayfish in the cratch.

Today went like a dream compared to the previous couple, we actually fitted both boats into about half of the locks which meant we didn't have to work them all twice. The locks were a bit further apart which meant we covered more miles and some of the locks were actually a bit easier to operate. We have made it as far as Broad Cut Top Lock which means we only have two more locks on the Calder. The weather was a bit mean, rained on us a lot of the time but only light rain so not too bad. I managed to stay out of it quite a lot of the time as I was on mince pie and crayfish cooking duty. No, I wasn't cooking them together! One crayfish did make a bid for freedom and I had to chase him round the kitchen floor.

We made good progress, for the first time in ages. When we moored up above the lock for the night the sun decided to shine at last so we sat outside for a while, Chris and Ray shelled the crayfish for me, then I did a sauce of tomatoes, onion, garlic and peppers to go with them, followed by rhubarb crumble and custard it made a good meal. We ate it while watching the football, Chris doesn't follow football and last night's match won't have done anything to encourage him. England played so badly they don't deserve to get through the group stage.

Today's journey 10.7 miles and 11 locks.
So far we have travelled 307.4 miles, 346 locks, 12 swing bridges, 4 lift bridges and 9 tunnels.