Boating in the cold

23rd & 24th November

We've had two flying starts in a row, despite us being in winter "relaxed" cruising mode. Yesterday we wanted to end the day at Hopwas, having watered and shopped at Fazeley on the way. Sheila leapt lightly out of bed whilst I was making the tea, and set off. Opening the back doors allowed a fearsome gale of wind through the bedroom, even with the door between the bedroom and engine room closed, so I chose to dress in the study for once.

The weather in general was extremely cold, with a northerly wind bringing arctic air across the whole country. By the time I took over at the helm, it had started to sleet into the bargain, so it was pretty hard sledding.

Things began to improve by the time we'd tied by Sutton Road Bridge, but it had demonstrated my need for a new pair of gloves. Over the years we've tried various solutions to the challenges posed by steering a narrowboat in gloves – fishing gloves, expensive SealSkinz gloves, even more expensive ultra hard wearing SealSkinz gloves. All have been defeated by the wearing power of mooring lines coated in grit, which, after all, over time have created the fascinating grooves in the stone and cast iron of bridge abutments.

Nowadays, we accept that a pair will just about last the winter if lucky, so we buy reasonably tough looking gloves for as little as we can pay for them. The leather pair I bought this time last year were now in rags, so before going into Sainsbury's we visited the TKMaxx nearby.

Here we struck lucky in the ski section, and both found pairs of waterproof ski gloves for £13 a pair – much better than paying over forty for aforesaid SealSkinz, and so far (after one day) performing if anything rather better.

It was getting on for half eleven by the time we got back to the boat, so we made a cup of coffee, unpacked the shopping, read the paper and then had lunch, setting off again just after one and getting to Hopwas by two.

The weather for this last bit was quite a bit better, but we still spent the rest of the day snug in the boat, me surfing the net, Sheila slogging on with the crochet – 4 x 47 inch strips will take a lot of time, and it's a bit tedious to have to do it all in one burst, but there you go.

Today was a very similar start, with the exception that the northerly wind was quite dry, just very cold. Sheila did most of the steering, it being her day, whilst I took over whilst she had breakfast. It became seriously bright blue and breezy, so quite bracing, but very pleasant, especially with nice warm hands in our nice new gloves.

I got the camera out to take a photo of the sunken boat outside Whittington, and left it handy by the front door in case anything else offered. This proved fortuitous, as there was a sunken car just above Junction Lock at Fradley.

I took a couple of shots of it, and after we'd moored and had lunch in Alrewas, I emailed one of them to Chris Daniels at Waterways World, on the off chance that he might buy it to illustrate a news item about the car.

Unfortunately, he was ahead of me, having already heard about it from the landlord of the Swan, and had asked Harry Arnold, doyen of waterways photographers, to go and take photos of them recovering it.

Heigh ho, I can't compete with the pros, which Harry certainly is, so better luck next time.

We've had another quiet afternoon. Jane Howarth looked in, which was great, but otherwise it's being a quiet time after the exertions of the morning. Tomorrow the Village Walk and lunch in the pub, yum.