Coping with the first ice of the season

3rd & 4th December

The cunning plan had been to make an early start, right after collecting some new sheets which we'd had sent to Will and Jane's, stop at Fradley for diesel, and then head on to Huddlesford Junction where I would buy Sheila a meal in the Plough as part of her birthday celebrations.

This proved to be a best laid plan in the Burns tradition, that is, it came unstuck at the first hurdle. The night before, we'd been on our way to bed when the boat started grinding as it rocked. My first thought was that the kids whom we could hear laughing and shouting under the bridge had raised a paddle on the lock, and the pound had fallen enough for us to grate on the bottom.

Looking out of the stern hatches showed that this was unfair; the problem was that the cut had frozen solid, and the noise was the rubbing strake grinding up and down on the ice edge next to it.

We therefore had a much more relaxed start first thing. I wandered round to Micklehome Drive to collect the parcel, did some shopping on the way back, and we sat around in the boat all morning. We weren't too worried, as the forecast was for a thaw within a couple of days, and we knew that there were at least two Shakespeare boats which needed to come past to get back to their base at Barton Turns.

One of these duly turned up mid morning: this raised the possibility that we could at least get up to Fradley Junction and refill the water tank. So we had an early lunch and set off at 12. Instead of eating in the quite classy setting of the Plough that night, we settled for the more rustic effects of the Swan.

It was none the worse for that; we had a great meal, all genuine home cooking, and entirely appropriate to the beer and the setting.

This morning the weather was indeed a touch warmer, but wet and windy with it. Quite yucky, in fact. Another review of the forecast showed that it was due to improve a bit as the day went on, so we decided to get the diesel and then set off for the shopping moorings at Sutton Road Bridge.

I don't know how much trouble mice do in fact have with their plans ganging aft agley, but this man is certainly having trouble with them this week. Swan Line didn't have any diesel.

Now we had a bit of bother with them with this last year, when they were having problems getting supplies delivered across the cut from the car park to the tank on the off side, but we thought they'd fixed that by moving the tank onto the ex-mud hopper they use as a services pontoon. This means that they can push the pontoon across the cut to refill the tank.

Running out now is just poor forward planning, and it's obviously no use relying on buying diesel at Fradley any more. The guy on the tow path who gave us the glad news was able to let us know that Fazeley Mill Marina is currently selling diesel cheaply, so, since we'd planned to pump out there tomorrow any way, we can fill up with diesel at the same time.

Sheila had by this time brought Sanity through the lock and tied on the pontoon, but with the wind blowing straight down the Trent and Mersey, she was able to reverse off the pontoon, and turn into the Coventry, once more demonstrating her skill at controlling seventeen and a half tons of boat with just a tiller and the engine.

Bow thruster, what's a bow thruster?

She then steered along the Coventry with the wind coming and going, whilst I got on with various jobs down below. I made a fresh batch of muesli, changed the drinking water filter (the flow has been getting very slow) and sorted the clock. When it gets very cold in the galley overnight, the bulkhead clock goes all wobbly on us. Specifically, the hour hand loses, but not the minute or second hand.

The only solution is to take the clock out of its case, set all the hands to twelve and then put it all back together again.

We had lunch on the way, and Sheila had just finished when we got to the mooring. This meant we could set off to do our shopping straight away. This trip was noticeable for a first in the forty-one years Sheila and I have been together.

Sheila needed some new boots. We had a look in JJB Sports, but they only do trainers and football type boots. Sports Direct next door, however, had some Karrimor fell boots on display. Sheila walked in, went over to the rack, picked a likely looking example off it and found that it was a) her size and b) was just what she wanted.

We must have been in and out of there in ten minutes.

Having set the tone for the session, we then got pretty well everything else we were looking for as well. We'll have a return trip to Sainsbury's tomorrow, then I shall have to try and do as well as Sheila getting in and out of Fazeley Mill.

After that we'll go up the Glascote Two, through Amington and moor for the night either at Alvecote or Polesworth.