Woodlesford

We spent a pleasant couple of days in the centre of Leeds. My visit to Leeds market has resulted in some strawberry vodka being made, two punnets of strawberries for £1 w
as too good a deal to pass up. I do like Leeds, I'm not a great fan of cities but Leeds has to be one of the best. I am a big fan of Leeds market, I think if I lived there I would eat very well at about half the price.

Yesterday we decided to move on, the disadvantage of the city centre is that the cats have to stay in and they do like their freedom. We have headed down to Woodlesford, still close enough to Leeds for visiting but now we are moored at a nice spot overlooking the River Aire, it is the same spot where we spent midsummer two years ago. The cats seem to like it here, the kittens are nearly weaned now so it won't be long before we have to find homes for them. Nimue has started bringing mice home for them to eat, yesterday she brought home a rat! It was still alive so I quickly evicted both Nimue and the rat.

We are keeping busy doing a few bits around the boat, we have moved our topbox from Morgana to Merlin, at the moment Ray is trying to construct a "cat safety gate" which will allow us to have the front doors open without letting the cats out. I have started making a gallon of elderflower "champagne", I've never made it before so I have my fingers crossed.

We are heading for the Huddersfield Canal, hopefully we will be able to go through the Standedge tunnel, unpowered boats aren't allowed through but I don't know if that applies to butties. If we can't go through the tunnel we will have to go back across the Pennines via the Rochdale canal or back across on the Leeds and Liverpool. From here we have a few miles of river, downstream on the Aire and upstream on the Calder before we are back on canals.We probably won't make any progress until after the weekend as there is some very heavy rain forecast and we would rather stay off of the river until that has passed.

Yesterday's journey 5.3 miles and 4 locks

So far this year we have travelled 418 miles, 264 locks, 42 swing bridges, 1 lift bridge and 11 tunnels



In 2011 we travelled 461.4 miles, 444 locks, 3 swing bridges, 34 lift bridges and 15 tunnels

During 2010 we travelled 740.3 miles, 642 locks, 53 swing bridges, 4 lift bridges and 25 tunnels


Since Ray retired we have travelled 1619.7 miles, 1350 locks, 99 swing bridges, 39 lift bridges and 51 tunnels