Figure of 3 near completion

it's been over a year now hasn't it? - Still, at least it'll reopen that route to the hnc/rochdale to take a bit of traffic of the water Leeds and Liverpool Watersupply.


eta - have you spotted that newley and forge locks are not longer going to be manned? - still gonna be locked up over night but now it's self service - russel (the worlds most annoying seasonal lock keeper) is being moved to bingley 3 and 5 to join John and Miles as claire isn't coming back...  

Stilll,  bingleys loss is newleys gain.

with very good reason in his case... the  man is an absolute cockwomble and that's being polite.

lazy, does his best to piss every passing boat off with spurious excuses why you have to wait ... such as "there might be another boat coming from skipton today... or I'm about to take my break or I'm just an arsshole... that's the most common reason imho.

Crickey, don’t sugar coat it!

remind me never to piss you off 🤪🍻👍

I don't bear grudges but that man pushes every button possible - he really is the worse I've ever come accross.  As you know, I'll have gone up and down that section between Leeds and Rodley maybe 30 times in the last couple of years and without exception, EACH time he has been on, he's tried to hold things up.  EVERY other one that works there - inc the volunteers are brilliant but HE really just wants to be a dick.  

He crosses hire boats half way through the flight (whether required or not) just to show how wonderful /controlling he can be  - no thought for the fear he causes to the hire boats making them try and move diagonally in the lock to do so... 


I stand by my initial statement of cockwomble.  I'm sure  "personably " he's a lovely bloke but He is NOT the right chap for that job and have yet to find a boater on that stretch who would say he was.

I pity Bingley this year.... AND the hire boats from Silsden that are hoping for swift passage down and back up for their jollies.

'most' of them are ok - in fact, quite often meeting a proper lockie is a real pleasure as they have info to share, enthusiasm to ooze and help to give...

That said, you still get the power control freakery associated with small man syndrome - especially with the vollies who have retired and now need to feel important/in control and thus piss about making everyone else's day more difficult to feed their addiction to power.

As you might imagine, I sometimes find it very difficult to 'manage' these people - who are not improving the experience to the users - just themselves. I'm fine if I'd had a gin or 2 but if they get me before 8 am (;-)) Ive been known to speak my mind lol.

I’ll give you that!

I had forgotten to include Mick at the Dog and the lads at Hermitage - the Half is Marmont; occasionally (more often these days as I understand) it’s self service, absolute chaos if Foxes day boat is in the mix. We got there a couple of years ago to find no Maureen and the day boat crew going downhill having racked every slacker wide open. It’s one of the very few times I’ve intervened in someone else’s locking, looked to be heading for a nasty incident - that and they were holding us up!

Maybe we should get Nick to go up there.