Very chilly

For the first time this winter, it seems possible that we shall see some ice on the water by the end of the weekend. There have been odd bits of cat ice in the shallows on frosty mornings, but so far no suggestion of the main surface area becoming solid. However, the forecast suggests that we shall have sub zero temperatures Saturday night to Sunday morning, and the cold conditions for the past week mean that the bulk of the water will already be pretty chilled.

In the light of that, we may well go across to the service wharf for a pump out and diesel on Saturday afternoon, rather than Sunday morning, as we'd planned when we gave up the idea of doing it on Monday afternoon, Monday morning, Sunday afternoon.

Today, it was very cold in the wind, so that we felt well chilled walking across to the Willow Tree for a rendezvous with the Coffee Bar Kids for hot chocolate. After a pleasant hour, we went out to raid the mini market, with only limited success for once. The butcher was there, and had brought our beef fore-rib joints, but the veg stall hadn't turned up, a bit of a blow, as we'd all let our stocks run down a bit in anticipation of a good splurge today.

A walk into the village is now indicated for tomorrow, so as to have a sufficiency of veggies for the week.

We've spent the rest of the day huddled in the boat, working on various projects including the Canal Boat Christmas Quiz (mostly Sheila) and my book (me). I've just got the final chapter to write; I've got the notes for it, so it shouldn't take too long to do, then it will be a case of tweaking and polishing and finally publishing the thing.

After tomorrow, blogging may be a bit erratic in the run up to Christmas, with a lot of family commitments to cover, but I'll try and get something in at least every other day, then probably take a break between Christmas and the New Year.