Missions accomplished

11th & 12th December

Much to our surprise (and delight), there wasn't a lot if ice on the cut yesterday morning, the night having been much milder than forecast. We only realised this after a leisurely start, but the opportunity was too good to miss, so whilst I made a quick trip to the shop, Sheila got Sanity ready for action.

On my return, we set off for Braunston. We'd originally planned to do this in two stages, one stopping at Tesco and overnighting at Hillmorton, the other from Hillmorton to Braunston. However, in view of the sudden opportunity to get to our target destination, we decided to concatenate the stages into one, missing out the shopfest and lunching on the way.

This decision was supported by a phone call from John Campbell. He and Nev were travelling up to Calcutt to take Waimaru out, and so could meet us for night's jollification if we got to Braunston.

We did all this in fine style. The weather from time to time looked threatening, but never actually came on to rain, snow or otherwise precipitate, and by just after two, we were winding in the mouth of the marina and finding a mooring by the Turn. As we approached it, Waimaru came through the bridgehole, and after winding in turn, tied not far behind us.

Having got ourselves sorted out, John and I went to Tradline where I bought the coil of fender rope and some lengths of chain. John was especially helpful in lending me his folding trolley; it's a moderate walk from the Turn to the Tradline shop in the marina, and 220 metres of rope is quite heavy.

Even retired bankers have their uses!

After cups of tea and much chat, we got ourselves ready for a night of wild excess, and went up to The Old Plough for a meal. Avril's pub remains an excellent place for such a meeting of old friends: long may she flourish.

The only fly in the ointment was that, after spending a bit of post-pub time on Waimaru helping John finish a bottle of wine he was trying to use up, we got back to Sanity just on midnight to discover that the fire must have gone out almost as soon as we'd left her five and a half hours before.

Since the night was incredibly crisp and cold, the temperature in the boat was close to freezing. I relit the fire, and we sat around in the saloon for most of an hour whilst it warmed up enough to let us even think about taking our clothes off.

This morning, after a short night's sleep, we rose to find that things were already much milder. Although the cut was covered with ice, you could see that it was thawing, and as boats started moving during the day, it quickly broke up.

I investigated the water pump system, and found that the accumulator had lost all its air pressure, which might well explain the odd performance. I pumped it back up with our bicycle pump, and I'll keep an eye on it for a few days to see how it goes.

We had a trip up to the village and then down to the Wharf House chandlery to get supplies of oil and a filter for the next engine service. We had a good look at alternative light fittings for the saloon walls. The reading light fittings that we've got now aren't quite what we'd like anymore ,and one of them has a broken switch. We're thinking of replacing them with some LED lights flush to the wall, but they'll have to be wide enough to cover the pale patch in the varnish that will be left after removing the existing lights.

We saw some that might well do, but we'll carry on sussing out the options for a bit before deciding.

On our way back along the towpath we popped into Waimaru for a final coffee and natter before going back to Sanity for lunch.

We've got a decent internet connection here, so we've been able to do some Christmas shopping on line, and Sheila did some of her banking stuff.

Tonight is scheduled to be mild again, so we plan a flying start tomorrow, to get back to Newbold via Tesco. Then it will be a case of moving the boat as the weather permits, aiming to be back around Alrewas for the Christmas week.