Not quite what we'd planned

It was much colder overnight than forecast, down to  around -4ºC (25ºF), and there was ½" of ice on the water when we got up. At least it justified our decision to stay put here in Alrewas; we just have to hope that the forecast will be right when it tells us to expect a thaw tomorrow.

Elanor took me into Burton for my eye clinic appointment. The latest drops had not achieved very much, so I've been prescribed another set, in fact two lots, so I'll need to go back again in another 6 weeks. This may make the logistics a bit tricky in March, but we shall just have to see.

As recompense, when shopping at Morrison's, I bought us a fancy pasty each for lunch. Sally was not at all impressed with this, as she didn't get one, but her diet means that we daren't indulge her in that way.

In any case, she'd spent yesterday evening doing her "hunting a thing" act. This involves staring very hard at sundry bits of wall, either because there's a point of light on it, or because it has odd and scary shadows. Once locked into this, it's almost impossible to get her attention, except by deployment of treats, and even then she'll go back to thing-hunting whilst still chewing the treat.

It results in some highly inelegant postures:

To make up for that, here's a more flattering portrait, taken this afternoon for Elanor's purposes:

Sunny Sunday

It's been a very pleasant day; it wasn't as cold as expected overnight, the sun came out and we had a gentle stroll through the village to buy a paper first(ish) thing.

Back on board, various bits of IT housekeeping were done, and then a relaxed lunch consumed.

Elanor and Sally arrived at one o'clock as planned, and we had a more energetic walk up to Fradley and along the moorings on the Coventry Canal. A lot of the boats which were tied on the main vistor moorings have gone, so that there's now a lot of room.

Round the corner we found Braidbar number 52, Maid of the Mist, but didn't have a chance to chat to them. Below Hunts Lock, Waterlily seemed to be occupied, so on the way back we tried giving them a hail. There was no response; we concluded that either they were in the pub, or had staggered back from it and were "resting" in the boat. ;)

Tomorrow, Elanor will give me a lift into Burton first thing, and we'll visit Morrison's on the way back. If the weather is still good, we'll all take Sanity Again up to Fradley, from where Elanor and Sally can walk back to collect their car.

Just too much ice

That's a deliberately multilayered headline up there. You could certainly say we've seen just too much ice this winter, but what I'm getting at is the ¼" which was surrounding the boat when we started staggering about this morning. Now, even by our quite picky standards, ¼" isn't enough to stop the boat moving, but checking the weather forecast showed that we could expect another two nights of it.

We figured that getting seriously iced in at say Branston Water Park or the Morrison's mooring would be a lot less convenient than here at Alrewas, so we've stayed put. There's just too much ice in the forecast.

The main problems with that are a) my appointment in Burton Hospital at 9.15 on Monday morning and b) the fact that we'd been going to buy coal today, the last bag of Taybrite having been opened yesterday.

Solutions: a) Elanor and Sally will come and sleepover tomorrow, then Elanor can give me a lift into Burton first thing Monday, and b) Monarch and Grimsby came past just after lunch, and I bought 5 bags of Stoveglow from them at £9.50 for a 25 kg bag. I haven't tried Stoveglow before, but it was that or more Taybrite.

In between times, we've also been into the village for routine shopping. This included meat, which let me discover that Coates are now doing home made haggis. I've bought one for Tuesday (Burns' Night [quick edit, no it's not, it was last Tuesday]), and will report on it in due course.

For our overseas readers, this is a haggis:

Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!

There's more info here, if you want it!

Dog sitting

We've been dog sitting today; Sally came and joined us whilst Elanor went to an event at her riding stables. She's spent a fair bit of the day whining gently to herself and peering out of the bow doors to see if her mummy is in sight, but did enjoy a walk up to Fradley with us.

It gave her a chance to sort out some untidy ducks, who were chivvied back onto the water, and she had a chat with the woman from Poacher, currently tied behind us, who used to be involved in Doberman rescue. Apparently, this whinging noise is typical Dobie.

I'm pleased to report that there was a lot of room on the visitor moorings at Fradley; whether my tweet and post had stirred things up, or whether Sue from No Problem had done the trick, I'm not sure, but a lot of boats have moved on.

Tomorrow, we plan to boat down to Branston Water Park.

Hanging about Alrewas

It's been a day for staying indoors, with a cruel easterly wind blowing straight through you when you venture out. We had a walk this morning via the village centre to buy a paper and admire the new paving outside the little parade of shops, coming back by the canal towpath.

The only downside of the new smart look is that they've removed the clothing bank, so now there is absolutely no rubbish or recycling disposal here, unless you've got a dog. (Plenty of dog poo bins.)

The one trip was enough; we've spent the rest of the day lurking indoors. Sheila took advantage of the battery recharging engine run to do a wash load, most of which will have to be dried on a rack in front of the Squirrel until it can be put in the airing cupboard.

We're down to our last bag of coal, so will have to pick some up either from Barton Marina, or from Shobnall when we're down there.

Back in Alrewas

I was up betimes this morning, and outside the surgery before ten past eight. As it was, I was third in the queue, but still got an appointment for half eight, so just had to wait for a while before being seen. The result was still another change in my prescription; these changes of antihypertensive medication tend to produce striking "initial dose" effects, so I've spent much of the rest of the day in a rather dozy state.

Never mind, things will be better tomorrow, no doubt. Coates the butcher supplied some large pasties for lunch, and we took a bit of a walk along the village towpath afterwards. The wind has gone round to the north east, so it was necessarily quite a short walk, and we've spent the balance of the time in the boat with the fire well stoked.

More boating than planned

It wasn't a particularly nice morning, weatherwise, but we dressed up in all the gear and set off in the rain just after nine. A pretty uneventful trip took us to the top of Fradley, where BW have finally removed the remains of poor old Flycatcher, sunk on the visitor moorings for most of last year. There was a bit of room on the moorings above Shade House, unusually, and we carried merrily on down the flight.

We had to wait for a boat to clear Junction Lock, which gave Sheila the chance to see that there was absolutely no room on the moorings opposite the BW yard. The guy on the boat in front told her that they'd been like that since before Christmas, and a couple of subsequent conversations confirmed this.

One of the boats had certainly not been there all the time, as I recognised it by an entertaining card in its window. "Things are getting worse, send chocolate" it reads, and I remember seeing it around Haywood earlier in the year.

Nonetheless it was apparent that there wasn't the turnover you'd expect on a 48 hour mooring, since this was the scene at eleven o'clock:

Not what you want to see on emerging from Junction Lock on a cold wet morning in January. None of these boats were showing a winter mooring disc; I suspect that they've just been rotating about the local moorings all winter, leaving no room for the genuine cruiser as a result.

In the circumstances, there was nothing for it but to plod on to Alrewas. A boat we crossed with at Keepers Lock reassured us that there was plenty of room there, so on we went, arriving above Bagnall Lock just after twelve midday.

Harry Arnold came past as we were tying up, and we had a good old natter with him before thankfully falling on some hot soup and sandwiches for lunch. We'll just have to spend an extra day here, so no big deal from that point of view, but it's just as well we weren't committed to being in Fradley for some reason.

It all just underscores the problems with any plans for local mooring strategies; without effective enforcement, they will be a complete waste of time, and if BW can't enforce the current arrangements outside their own offices, what chance is there of that?

Through Rugeley

We had another early (for us, for winter) start this morning, as we had some distance to go. Setting off around nine, Sheila steered Sanity Again to that metropolitan marvel of modernity, Rugeley, where there were very few boats moored.

Sarcasm aside, as I've said before, Rugeley's great advantage is the presence of a Morrison's and a Wilkinson's within easy walking distance of the cut. Apart from that, the place is really only of interest to power station aficionados (Rugeley is one of the cold start stations, but otherwise quite small by River Trent standards, two 500MW units) and Inspector Morse fans (it's where the original events that underly The Wench is Dead reached their climax).

We stocked up with well priced hardware and perishables, and were on our way half an hour later. Sheila continued to steer on a chilly day, whilst I put things away and made mugs of coffee. After negotiating the Armitage tunnel and the restrictions following, we arrived in Handsacre just before twelve. The original plan had been to carry on to Kings Bromley, but the weather and growing hunger induced us to stop just out of Handsacre at Bridge 59.

Tomorrow, on to Fradley.

Escape

We were so excited, we got up quite early for us on a Sunday, and by half nine had switched the boat over to cruise mode and crossed the marina to the service jetty. The office doesn't open until ten on Sunday, so we improved the time by dumping our recycling in the bins provided and readying the boat for pump out and diesel.

Geoff, the boss, was doing the job himself today, and he soon had us sorted out. We took the opportunity to pay for another month's mooring, then off we went.

Getting 70 foot out of the marina is not easy; Sheila had to get off the bow onto the towpath opposite and haul it (the bow, not the towpath) round with the mooring line, but at last we were heading down the cut, boating for the first time in nearly three months. After dropping down Haywood Lock, we paused below for me to nip off and get a Sunday paper, then on we chugged to tie at Wolseley Bridge for the night.

After lunch, we've been pottering about; the 3 connection is very good here*, so Sheila's been doing some proof reading whilst I caught up with responding to blog comments and doing this post. Tomorrow, we'll stop in Rugeley for shopping (good Wilkinson's handy for the towpath there) and probably go on to Kings Bromley for the night.

*I've just tested it with Speedtest.net – 3.97Mbps down, 1.49 up, not bad at all for a mobile connection.

Busy Saturday

We had a very pleasant evening with Bob and Cath last night, and so made a fairly relaxed start this morning. Since then, it's been a fairly busy day; we popped into Reception for a chat on our way to get the paper, and Sheila ran another washload, so as to have a tumble dryer load to do this afternoon.

Although the overnight frost had caused some problems with the water taps, the one nearest us was persuaded to work, and I refilled the water tank.

Elanor and Sally joined us for the afternoon, bringing a quantity of post. This included a smart new fleecy coat for Sally, and the external DVD drive for Elanor's MacBook. I'm pleased to say that this last seems to work well, so that's one more problem solved.

Sally's winter coat

After a cup of tea, I trimmed Sheila's hair, and Elanor is staying for dinner.

Tomorrow, we head out to take a week to amble down to Burton via Alrewas.

Post dog recovery

It was heart warming to see Sally's reaction when Elanor turned up to collect her last night. She was beside herself with glee, ears laid back, bouncing up and down, giving little yipes of welcome...

The dog was pretty pleased too ;)

Speaking to Elanor today, I learnt that they had had a good agility class, with Sally doing a lot more off lead, so her stay with us hasn't spoilt her behaviour altogether.

After a lie in, we called in at the marina office this morning, and had a serious conversation with Steve the manager. He's undertaken to check just what's going on with the guys on Crosby; they are supposed to be moving jetties next month, so that should solve our problem, even if it doesn't settle the matter of the sheer amount of work that's being done on board. Apparently, it had been described as a bit of tiling work, but we know that the main project is refitting the galley and reflooring the saloon, which is likely to involve a lot more cutting and screwing yet, I'd have thought, even if the units are prepacked.

We shall see... we've agreed to come back in after our trip to Burton, as we'd really like the benefit of another month on the shoreline before getting back into cruise mode. Typically, things were quite quiet next door for most of the day, and we started to feel a shade guilty about complaining (typical Brits), but a burst of hammering this afternoon soon persuaded us otherwise.

We're off out tonight, visiting Bob and Kath on Lyra for a glass or two of wine.

Counting the days

Despite a freezing fog this morning, the day gradually improved until it was a classic bright winter's day when I took Sally for her walk this afternoon. We can hardly wait to get boating again.

Things were even better when I spotted a pair of goldfinches in the towpath hedge above Hoo Mill Lock. According to our bird book, they are supposed to be summer visitors, but this must have been a scarce resident pair. Quite a remarkably good looking bird, and very uplifting to spot.

Sally was less impressed by a juvenile swan that offered offensive remarks, and had to be tidied away into the cut. She nearly pulled me over in her excitement, so we had to have a serious talk, with Sal lying down on her side during it. She stayed on her best behaviour after that for several minutes, but was her bouncy self again by the time we got back to the boat.

The Sainsbury's delivery arrived in good time this morning, so the cupboards are well stocked with the heavier items like milk, fruit juice and beer.

Elanor arrives to collect Sally this evening; we'll miss her tonight, I'm sure, though it will be nice to be able to get up to go to the loo without this anxious black and tan face appearing by the side of the bed afterwards.

and another fine day

Removing the cushions from the chairs worked as a dog deterrent last night, and we only had a couple of checking up visits from Sally until she came and joined us at six. She's slowly getting used to Elanor not being here, but I'm sure she'll be ecstatic when collected tomorrow.

It's been another day for walks in the winter sun, fresh but fine, very pleasant.

I've sorted the Sainsbury's order for tomorrow, and had a conversation with the guy on Crosby, who apologised yet again for the noise. This is good of him, but it doesn't make it any more pleasant in the boat whilst he's sawing and hammering.

He's planning to spend the early part of February refitting the galley, so unless the marina can offer us an alternative berth, it looks like we won't be spending that month in here. As I said in reply to comments on the last post, we'll wait until Sally is off the boat before having a conversation with the management about the situation. We don't like leaving her alone in the boat, as she's getting very skilled at opening the bow doors for herself, and turning up at Reception with our Doberman in tow feels a bit over the top as an approach to complaint resolution.

There's not a lot more to say today, really; we're really looking forward to at least a week's boating next week.

What a nice day

We all had a better night's sleep last night, though the reason for some of this became apparent when I found paw prints on my armchair in the saloon this morning. It looks like Sally disapproves of the bed provided, and prefers kipping in comfort on my seat.

We'll have to arrange things so that she can't do that tonight, but we'll provide some extra padding on her bed, just in case she's finding it too hard.

She and I had an excellent walk this afternoon; the weather has been glorious, sunny and fresh. We went across the canal at the carriage bridge below Haywood Lock, and explored the walking options on the other side. Sally was quite keen on chasing some insolent squirrels, but I was reluctant to let her off in view of Elanor's recent problems with recall.

Apart from that, we're plodding on; the noise from the refitting of Crosby next door is becoming frankly tedious. We need to decide if we're going to stay in the marina for February after all, as we'd originally planned. It's really nice having a shoreline and all that, but it's not worth it if the boat is full of drilling and sawing noises all day.

We've not paid for February yet; I think a conversation with Geoff, the marina owner, is indicated sometime soon.

Dog to dog blog

Hi guys

I'm spending a few days looking after the grandparents; Mummy says it's because she's doing a course in college this week, and she doesn't think I'd be happy spending all day on my own in the house. I'm not sure what the big problem is supposed to be; there's the cat to keep tidying up, and if I get bored, I can always practice my singing.

If I pick just the right spot in the hall, the howl really echoes through the house, and the folk on each side get to hear it as well.

I think the real reason is that Mum is worried that the AGPs (that's Aged GrandParents) don't get enough exercise in the winter, so I have to stay there and make sure they get enough walks.

It's really hard work, especially as I get quite worried about them in the night, too. Every time Grandpa turns over, I have to walk through the boat on tippy toe, just my claws clicking on the floor, and make sure he's OK. I do this either by talking to him gently, you know, hwine, hwine, hwine, or, once, when his face was towards me, I gave him a little kiss.

Later in the night, he finally stopped responding altogether, so I thought I really ought to make sure he was OK. I nipped back into the saloon and did the honking up my dinner noise, urrrggghhh, gloop, hack, hack. Didn't actually bring anything up, of course, just licked the floor a bit afterwards to look convincing. It did the job, through he came, putting all the lights on and everything, so I knew he was still alive.

Big relief, I can tell you. I mean, what would I have told Mum if he'd flaked out while I was supposed to be looking after him?

Not that he was terribly grateful, of course, typical, parents, you do your best and what do you get? It's not as if I was all that happy about things myself, being away from Mum and all.

Never mind, as soon as the heating started in the morning, I shot down there and did the "I'm frantic, my paws are crossed, I'm going to pee all over the floor" bit, and he got up quite quickly, put some clothes on over his pyjamas and took me for a walk.

I've spent the rest of the day getting them out and about. There's a few other dogs around the marina, so plenty of chances for mutual sniffing and stuff.

Still, just three more days to go - Mum's picking me up Thursday, so we can go to Agility Class that night.

Keep those bunnies down!

Loads of licks

Your friend

Sally

Shafts and stuff

A recent comment reminds me that at least some of my readers may not be familiar with boating terms that I take for granted, such as "cabin shaft", which prompts me to talk about our choice of deck furniture for the roof of Sanity Again.

Since the main event of today has been an unsuccessful attempt to rehabilitate the DVD drive on Elanor's MacBook, I'll deal briefly with that and then carry on with the shafting.

Elanor has had her MacBook for around three years now, and often uses it to watch commercial DVDs, as she doesn't have a TV or DVD player. Just recently, it has stopped even recognising the disc when she puts it in. It spins it about for a bit, and then ejects it.

A bit of internet research suggested getting a drive cleaning disc, rather than embarking on expensive lab costs. This we did, and I tried using the disc today. It was fine with the drive on my MacMini, which had also started to get picky about which discs it would play, but three applications to Elanor's didn't make a lot of difference. I don't know a lot about slot drives, but I guess they must involve friction linings somewhere, and that hers have just worn out.

Rather than pay a lot to have the laptop taken apart and the drive replaced, we've just bought her an external DVD writer drive; the advent of tablets and netbooks means that there's a good choice of these on Amazon at around £30, which must be cheaper than replacing the internal drive.

So, shafts... There are two basic types, long and short. The long shaft needs to be as long as you can handle, from 10 to 14 foot. A lot of boatbuilders supply a length of basic banister rail for the long shaft, as it has a flat side on it, stopping it from rolling down the roof. The only problem with that is that they are almost always softwood, and no way has yet been found to stop them bending.

We have a 14 foot ash shaft, painted with Cuprinol, which lives on the stand at the front of the boat. However you arrange this stand, do try to make sure that you can reach the items on it from the forward well deck; after all, it's commonly a problem situation when you want to grab the shaft, and having to clamber along the gunwale to get it only adds to the stress.

In addition, we have two cabin shafts, that is eight foot ash poles with boat hook ends. One lies where you'd expect, at the stern, handy for the steerer (the name comes from the fact that on a working boat, the short shaft was kept on the roof of the accommodation at the stern of the boat).

The other we keep with the long shaft, and use it for fishing stuff out of the cut from the bow. We've also acquired a shorter shaft with a double hook on the end, which we found floating, broken, in the cut one day after some youths had been mucking about on the towpath. We keep hoping someone will recognise it and claim it, but not so far.

Also on the roof at the bow is the deck brush, and the boarding plank. Some pictures of all these:

The long shaft

Cabin shaft at the stern

Close up of hook end

The complete set at the bow

Hanging about

It's hard to get enough exercise at the moment; I had planned to do a bit of walking today, but the grey, wet and windy weather really wasn't very inviting.

So today's activities have consisted of:

• Walking into the village by the shortest route to get a paper
• reading said paper
• doing the short quiz, the Get the Picture quiz and the jumbo general knowledge crossword (not a bad effort this week)
• preparing and eating lunch
• stripping the meat off a chicken carcass after using it to make stock
• starting some broccoli, carrot and celery soup with some tired, yellowish heads of broccoli
• doing this blog

You can see why we're looking forward to doing some boating, hopefully at the end of next week, when we're planning to take a run into Burton. We just have to keep our fingers crossed that the ice stays away, and that the wind isn't anything like the 40 mph gusts we've had today.

It'll give me something more interesting to blog about, as well.

A quiet day

We've had a quiet day today; Sheila made it into the village for the first time since the cold laid her low, and after that we just pottered about. It's the last day of the month for our mobile internet contract, and since we had a decent amount of data allowance left, we did a bit of software updating.

It also meant that we could download a hilarious YouTube clip, as recommended by Boots in his latest blog:

Other reasons to be cheerful include Sheila spotting a kingfisher flying round the marina on two occasions; on the last one it actually perched on our swan neck for a while.

Sally will be joining us for a few days next week whilst Elanor goes on a short course, so there's some chance I'll be able to persuade her to do a blog post and give me a break.

Making the most of the mild weather

There's still six weeks of winter to go, but the very mild weather we are having at the moment does bring a spring like feel, especially as the days are starting to lengthen. We may well have more freezing weather before we're done, of course, but the outlook suggests that it will be more like the usual winter mix of periods of wet, windy and mild weather, and times of clearer, colder conditions.

It's still a stimulus to start clearing up winter's mess; today we carried on catching up with the laundry, and I spent a bit of time in the engine room. After our trip across to the service wharf the other day, I noticed a quantity of water in the engine bilge. Further investigation showed that there was a wet layer in the bottom of all the stern bilges, in addition to the stuff sloshing about under the stern greaser.

My main concern, of course, was to check that the engine coolant circuit hadn't sprung a leak in the extreme cold. In view of the levels of antifreeze, a serious problem was unlikely, and anyway, there wasn't enough water about to suggest a split hose or anything, but it was possible that one of the steel stubs had contracted enough in the cold to start a weep around its hose end. Coolant levels were a bit low in the header tank, but I'm still getting used to what this engine prefers in there, and of course, the coolant volume would be at a minimum, being well chilled.

So, with the aid of a bucket and sponge, I cleaned up as much of the water as I could, especially in the side bilge I use as a glory hole, and under the engine. It was clearly mainly condensation; the sides of the swim were running with it. I started the engine, and ran it until the thermostat opened, all the time peering suspiciously at the various joints in the coolant circuit.

All was well; I was probably being unnecessarily twitchy, but it's one less thing to worry about in the middle of the night.  ;)

Solo to Stafford

Sheila has still not fully recovered from the dreaded heavy cold/flu like illness, so I went to Stafford all by myself today. It proved to be a successful trip, although the indoor market isn't open on Wednesdays, so I couldn't get any meat from the butcher in there.

This is a bit of a pain, as in my experience the butcher here in Great Haywood is no more than OK, with rather high prices and not very special meat (the "steak mince" is fatty, and the stewing steak variable, so that after two hours cooking some bits are melting in the mouth and others are like shoe leather).

No matter, I'm sure I'll think of something.

Meanwhile, back at the boat, Sheila ran several wash loads, watched her Christmas DVD of Kiss Me Kate and took a phone call from Peter Mason at Braidbar. He was ringing to say that he's going to replace the faulty toilet tank gauge sender again, but needed the vital statistics of the tank to order the replacement.

It was good of him to call, as today was the day that the next shell, which will become Braidbar number 129, Mi Amigo, was being delivered. So, congratulations to Derek and Eleanor Apps, I hope the build goes well for you, and that you are as thrilled with your new boat as we have been with both of ours.

Erkk! Too late...

Got up this morning, went to the loo, made tea, came back to bed.

"What is that terrible niff?"

Oh no, it was the content of the toilet tank finding its way out of the forward breather filter under the bed. A) the tank gauge is under-reading, so that the tank is full when the gauge says there's an eighth left and b) the filter is lower than I thought, so that any overspill reaches it before it reaches the stern breather.

What a lovely start to the day, and all my fault for being overoptimistic about the tank's capacity (we knew that the gauge was playing silly b's). So, despite the fiercely gusty wind, it was off to the service block straight after breakfast. This required some nifty boating; at one point, I had to turn Sanity Again's stern into the wind and reverse down the marina, as there was no way I could get the bow to point into the wind.

We made it at last, and pumped out, refilled the fuel tank and bought another three bags of Taybrite. The trip back wasn't as bad, as the wind was largely blowing us the way we needed to go. After lunch, we took the bed apart, and I spent some time under it with pine disinfectant and the like, cleaning up. All is now sweetness and light in the bedroom, especially as we took the opportunity to change the bed, so that the predominant odour is that of fresh linen.

One good point: filling the tank made it possible to do a reasonably accurate calculation about the Hurricane's consumption, since of course the engine has had nothing to do since mid November. The answer is that it burns 0.5 litres per hour, a very economical rate, especially in the weather we've been having. Mind you, we've still got through 224 litres of diesel at 73 ppl.

Right, if that post hasn't put some of you off the liveaboard life, I don't know what will.

Going, going...

Although it was a bit cold last night, there was no significant increase in the ice, and the workshop team spent a bit of the morning ice breaking with one of the boats due for blacking, to encourage further thawing.

We decided that we would wait until tomorrow before going for a pump out and diesel, just to let the largest lumps disperse further. When I walked down the towpath to visit the PO, newsagent and pharmacy, there was a moderate amount of movement on  the cut. Two boats came up off the Staffs and Worcs to use the water point, and boats were coming up the lock as I returned.

Things are by no means completely back to normal, but are well on their way.

An exchange of emails with Norbury Wharf, followed up by a phone call, means that Sanity Again is booked to go on the dock on the 6 April, to be steam cleaned, inspected and have three coats of Comastic applied, the last of them on the Saturday. She'll come off on the Sunday, and we can stay on board for the duration.

This is very good for us; it will allow plenty of time to go to Alrewas for the routine check ups before we amble on to Crick for the show on the last weekend of May.

Still a way to go

The thaw continues, and we've had a very fine day today, but it will be a while before things are back to normal. We could probably move Sanity Again out of the marina and up and down the canal a little way, but there's still a lot of ice in front of the service wharf. This may get broken up tomorrow, if the guys working on the share boats decide to relaunch Huxley and extract the next candidate for blacking.

I took a walk to Tixall Wide this afternoon, and found that the state of the cut is very varied. The Wide itself is almost ice free, but there are still thick sheets blocking both exits, especially the westerly one towards Tixall Lock.

Debdale is still sat on her mooring there, safe and sound, but it will be a few days before she can be moved very far, I would guess. The forecast is for the thaw to continue, with rain tomorrow night and overnight on Tuesday, so that may well move things along.

Meanwhile, Sheila has started doing some research with our own blacking in mind. We want to get Sanity Again blacked this year; it's a good idea to do that first blacking quite soon in the boat's life, as the mill scale separating from the hull takes a lot of the original blacking off with it. Norbury Wharf is offering what looks like a good deal, charging £10.50 per foot for three coats of Comastic (always more expensive than the thinner stuff) after a steam clean. They also claim to be liveaboard friendly, and we've had good reports of them from fellow bloggers.

Hope deferred

It's been a pleasant day today, helped by the discovery that the overnight rain had substantially reduced the ice cover in the marina. It was possible to drive a cabin shaft through it from the back of the boat first thing this morning, so just before lunch, I tried starting the engine and giving the prop a blast of forward to see what effect it had on the ice.

The engine was sulky at first, smoking a bit and cutting out, but once going properly, seemed to settle down and behave itself. I suspect that a bit of condensation in the cylinders meant that I didn't get all four firing initially. Checking the oil and water had found nothing alarming, so hopefully it was just sulking a bit after the cold weather. The Hurricane heater, being installed in the same space, keeps the temperature well above freezing in there, and all the systems are well protected by antifreeze of course.

The prop wash blew broken ice well away from the stern; if I'd been keen to move, we could probably have left the marina today. Outside on the cut, there's no ice visible at all, and the odd boat has been seen moving.

Sadly, when I took a load of washing over to tumble dry (Sheila's still not going out much), Jenny and Dave pointed out that there's still more than two inches of ice off the service wharf, which is very shaded, so it looks as if it will be a couple of days yet before we can go over there for a pump out and diesel.

No matter, we'll just sit tight, reading the new edition of Waterways World, and see what the week will bring. We've got a quarter of a tank diesel; the main thing is whether we'll have to take some more out of the toilet tank before we can get it properly pumped.

All quiet

There's not a lot to report today; the snow duly came and went (it's almost all gone as I write), but whilst it was here, it made being outside quite unpleasant.

Sheila continues to struggle with the horrible cold, so has stayed inside, snuggled up to her box of tissues.

In turn, that's meant that most of my time has been focussed on the routine jobs, repaying Sheila for all the work she did whilst I was hors de combat. We're still better off than our neighbour Bob on Lyra; his attack has turned to pleurisy and pneumonia, poor chap. We've offered to do anything we can to help, of course, but I guess it's mainly a case of hoping that the antibiotics do their job quickly.

Meanwhile, on a cheerier note, the new issue of Canal Boat is out, with a picture of Braidbar number 45, New Dawn, on the cover, as an illustration of the cruising guide to the Chesterfield Canal inside. There's also a piece about the increased dangers of the diesel bug, brought on by the change to ultra low sulphur fuel for inland boats, which often has several per cent of biodiesel mixed in.

I suspect there's a fair amount of scaremongering going on here, and I note that the piece is written by a guy whose company sells a biocide additive for diesel. Over on the canals list, several contributors have pointed out that they've been using similar fuel on the French waterways for years without any big problems.

Obviously, it's sensible to make sure that any water that collects at the bottom of the fuel tank or in the first fuel filter is removed, either by draining it, or sucking it out with an oil extractor, or by using one of the detergent type additives like FuelSet. In addition, if you're leaving the boat for months on end, fill the tank as full as possible to reduce condensation, and then, when you do go boating again, use up as much of that fuel as possible before refilling, so as to have plenty of fresh fuel in the tank.

Ho, ho, ho

So that's the festive season over for another twelvemonth. It's been a bit of a heavy one for the Napier family, one way and another, but at least it gave us a chance to catch up with the offspring and grand-offspring, so not all bad.

Fellow moorer Ian on Nobby tells me that a review of my recent postings found that the weather was taking up more and more of the tale; I guess that's not surprising, given how dramatic it's been, but I'll try and talk about other stuff at least some of the time!

The Sainsbury's order turned up in good time this morning, so we're fully stocked again, and I'm almost completely recovered from the savage cold that's doing the rounds. (Pauses to sneeze.) Sheila is a few days behind, so she's spending quite a lot of time snuggled up under a rug on her chair.

Also moored on D jetty with Nobby is Tamora; they came in just for the weekend at the end of November, and so are still here. Needing to try to get south of Atherstone before that lock flight closes for maintenance on Monday, her crew made a determined effort to break out today. After an hour, they had to give it up, having not quite managed to pull clear of the jetty.

The ice on the cut outside is quite thin now, but it's still between one and two inches thick in the marina; you can move back and forward in it, but turning is just too hard yet. With a slow thaw set to continue, we might be in a position to move about by this time next week.

...and wet

As forecast, it's rained for most of today. Not quite as warmly as I'd hoped, but definitely not freezing, and the ice on the water is beginning to retreat. The forecast for the next couple of weeks is for alternate frosty spells and these slightly warmer days, so it's not going to be a galloping thaw, that's for sure.

It's been a day for sitting tight in the boat, pottering about and watching the Hogfather DVD I got for Christmas.

The guy next door in Crosby is industriously refitting part of his boat, so our musings are punctuated by the sound and feel of heavy drilling and grinding. It's just like being in the yard up at Braidbar, hearing the guys there working away whilst we loaf about.

We've booked a Sainsbury's delivery for tomorrow, so we've got something to look forward to...

Cold

Sheila once worked for a guy who'd done 18 months on the British Antarctic Survey. When asked what it was like, he said "Basically, you were just cold, all the time" and this winter, like the last one, is getting to be that way.

It's not that we can't keep the boat warm, but nonetheless, the principal preoccupation is with managing the cold,* and our colds. Mine is now well on the way out, and Elanor's is beginning to abate, but poor Sheila is just starting the snuffling stage, wandering about never more than a metre from her box of tissues.

No matter, despite a very cold night again last night, the forecast continues to promise warmer weather to come, though punctuated by further periods of frost. It just means that it will take all the longer for the ice to relent enough to be able to move the boat to the service jetty to pump out and diesel, especially in this marina, which seems to have a bit of a rep for freezing. (Now they tell me.)

"Will we have to do another interim pump out into drums?" is the salient question of the moment. Time will tell.

*Yes, Bungle, I know that this is an Oxford comma, but I'm doing it for effect ;) .

New Year, old freeze

Readers of the Building Sanity Again blog will know that we returned from Lincoln to find our home safe, sound and warm after my arrangements to protect her through a severe frost. Unfortunately, as well as various Christmas gifts and some happy memories, we've brought back a ferocious cold apiece; indeed, poor Elanor, whose Yuletide had a number of downsides, is really suffering.

This is to add to the fact that that her car was rammed from the side just as she brought us to her house for onward transmission to Lincoln, and her water supply froze on Christmas morning, not recovering for several days, most of which she spent with us after our return.

At least the other driver has accepted responsibility for the collision, as well he might, since he drove into the side of her, but she still has all the hassle of getting the car repaired.

Here at Great Haywood, the ice is slowly thawing, but it looks like at least another week will be needed to see it off, even if the present forecast of a continuing slow thaw after today's little dip in temperatures is correct.

All we can do is sit tight and wait; buoyed up by the helpfulness and friendliness of our fellow moorers, most especially Dave and Jenny. Dave, the marina handyman, has spent most of the daylight hours since Christmas repairing a whole series of bursts and leaks in the jetties' water supplies.