Sykehouse Junction, that way to the other way.

Cuppas in bed with the Saturday newspaper were disturbed at just gone 9 as the first shots could be heard ringing out from Park Lodge on the other side of the Aire and Calder Navigation. Here people can have a go at clay pigeon shooting whilst others can enjoy a massage in the spa, I really hope the treatment rooms are sound proof! Or maybe everyone is given ear defenders on arrival.

Before breakfast we moved the boat. 180 degrees to face the other direction. This needed to happen before we let Tilly out for the day, a full 9 hours worth of shore leave.

They had swung the outside round, so it was on the other side. No delay for disembarking, I’d already sussed this and headed straight into the friendly cover to find some friends.

Mick delved deep into the freezer and found the last of the sausages we’d bought in Oxford back in November, time they were eaten. So he cooked us a few bits and pieces to accompany them. It all went down well and no lunch would be needed today.

Time to clean out the window frames on the starboard side. These are a little bit more troublesome to get to with the bed, sofa and dinette in the way. But I persevered. I think this is the first time the sliding window above the sink has had a good clean out. With the amount of compost I found in it I could have re-potted the Christmas tree!

Tilly was very bemused when I took the bathroom porthole out. She is used to pleading through this window, one paw forlornly round the side of the glass and her teary eye just visible through the gap to any passing gongoozler at locks. But here the opening was accessible. She considered an entrance but decided to carry on being busy on the towpath instead.

Mick did a couple of loads of washing and hung them out on the whirligig. As I finished the last window it started to rain. I managed to clean the cratch windows before it came down with any force whilst Mick scrambled to bring the washing in, still damp. This then got hung under the pram cover where it couldn’t get any wetter.

For the last couple of days Mick has spent several hours on the phone to Virgin to cancel our internet contract with them. At first the options sent him round and round in circles and then cut off, but yesterday he’d managed to get into the queue several times before getting very bored waiting for someone to answer.

At last today he got through to a human being and managed to cancel the contract with immediate effect, this was a surprise as it normally takes a month to do such things. But sure enough within five minutes of hanging up our internet stopped working. Brilliant no overlap of contracts.

On Friday Mick had checked the sim card worked so today it should just be a case of popping it in and off we’d go. Well it worked intermittently, but then so did our phones. Was this a problem with EE just as we swapped over? We’d been warned that for the first 24 hours the service may drop in and out, but then it should be fine. This is what we are hoping is the case. Time will tell.

Time to use some of the ginger! I’d hunted round on the internet for a recipe to incorporate some with a roast chicken. For this I had to zuzz up some cloves and fennel seeds, then make a paste with loads of garlic, some spices, a big chunk of ginger, then add soya sauce and sugar. Pour this over the chicken and then cook it covered for 3/4 of the roasting time then uncovered to crisp up the skin. The aroma was good as it cooked and the end result was very tasty.

The rain seemed to have brought out a mass of midges, several hundred had found their way indoors. Mick ran around with the hand held hoover trying to suck them up. Then I swatted as many as I could before the lights went out. There’s nothing worse than the sound of a tineey tiny blood sucking insect wizzing around the room, sounding like it’s right by your ear getting it’s fangs out to have a good drink!

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 wind, 5 windows degunked, 1 puzzled cat, 9 hours of being busy, 1 cancelled contract, 1 intermittent contract, 2 loads washing, 1 wet afternoon, 2 hours setting up, 1.5 inches ginger, 1 roast chicken, 39 hoovered midges, 17 squashed, 144 waiting to pounce, 1 circular day.