Leaving York after our last visit to King’s Staithe and then our cruise back down the Yorkshire Ouse making our way back downstream to Naburn Lock, following another vessel through Selby lock to moor into the quiet basin of the Selby Canal, getting Cadby Bridge to swing on channel 9 which was a triumph.
I took Diana for a walk around Selby which turned out to be a large market town with plenty of shopping facilities as the children had been watching a video and Daniel had been telephoning Angela; the love of his life
It was our last day in York today, but we had a bit of a lay in and then used the marina showers to the full before we left. We filled up with water and paid for the berth at a rate of £8 per day as we said goodbye to the staff. Then into York, with Daniel at the helm for the most part, mooring at the Kings Staithe for the last time. We were intercepted by some regular boaters there who, whilst being very hospitable and helpful, also delayed me a while by telling me all about the vagaries of the Yorkshire Ouse. Di went off to get the laundry done, Daniel pleased himself, and I took the girls to the bookshop and let them read whilst I went up to the library.
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I found out why so many young men of the West Yorkshire Regiment had died on July 1st 1991: They were in the front line of the first day in the Battle of the Somme, that frightful massacre in France that left over 50,000 casualties on our side on a single day; 30,000 dead and 20,000 wounded. I was quite moved and sickened by this callous disregard for human life and of the accounts that the officers could not stop to tend the wounded and left them to die. We rendezvoused back at the boat for lunch and then Di took us to a quieter part of York for a nice lunch which Diana and I enjoyed but which the children let us down by not eating home-made chips and "mushy peas". I sent them back to the boat without a pudding as a lesson. We collected the washing from the service wash at the launderette and then, all aboard, started our cruise back down the Yorkshire Ouse. We were at Naburn Lock around 3.00pm and twinned up with another boat for the downstream stretch to Selby Lock.
It may be that the neap tide was held up by the stiff south-west breeze as we struggled for depth in the low water, having to stop a couple of times, until we let the smaller craft go ahead of us. Two barges were stranded aground just below the Naburn Lock until the tide came in later. We eventually made it through the lock into the quiet basin of the Selby Canal with the assistance of a helpful lock-keeper, working late. It had been raining steadily for the most part and we got Cadby Bridge to swing on channel 9 which was a triumph. There was enough water under Selby bridges for all but our VHF aerial. This evening, the weather had cleared up and so I took Diana for a walk around Selby which turned out to be a large market town with plenty of shopping facilities. Then back to the boat where the children had been watching a video and Daniel had been telephoning Angela; the love of his life.