Coping with the cold

21st & 22nd December

A frequent question asked about our lifestyle is “Isn’t it cold in the winter?”

The simple reply to this is “No”. But it must be admitted that the kind of weather we are having at the moment is more of a challenge than dealing with a heat wave. The main source of heat is, of course, the Squirrel stove and we’ve been keeping that well stoked, day and night so that the temperature never falls below freezing anywhere in the cabin.

We’ve also been running the central heating for a bit longer morning and evening, to keep the bedroom and bathroom reasonably warm. It will be seen from this that keeping the boat warm when the snow is on the ground involves a bit more thought and effort than just turning up a thermostat and maybe opening a few radiator valves.

This is one of the ways in which life aboard is inherently greener than life ashore, because you are so much more aware of the fuel you are burning.

The cut remains well frozen over, and we are beginning to be anxious about how long our fresh water supply will have to last. We have gone into full water conservation mode; we’ve stopped taking showers and from today we are flushing the toilet with canal water, kept in a bucket by the loo and dipped out from where the ice has melted at the stern of the boat near the engine’s skin cooling tank.

We’ve also ordered a couple of collapsible 8 litre water containers; hopefully they have arrived today, or will do so tomorrow. We’ll use those for drinking water, so that the main use for the water remaining in the tank will be for washing and washing up.

Yesterday, we called in at Braidbar on our way down to Poynton to shop, just to check that we weren’t expected to tow the new shell. Peter told us that he had planned to leave the shell at High Lane if it arrived, but in fact had just been informed that, although it was ready to move, the crane was booked to lift it and North Cheshire Cruising Club had agreed to keep it until the New Year, the Trombo driver was not prepared to attempt the trip, rather to everyone’s relief.

We’ve provisionally been booked to do the tow on 4th January.

Peter offered to give us a lift down to Poynton, as he was going down himself to collect the butties for the guys’ mid morning break. These are normally delivered in a very small light van and there was no chance of it making it up the hill to the yard in the snow.

Just as we were setting off, we found a couple with a Jaguar trying to push it up the hill as it slithered around on the hard packed snow. These turned out to be Braidbar customers coming to discuss their order. After a lot of pushing and shoving by ourselves, the Braidbar workforce and two guys from a Treeworks wagon which was on its way down from their base just below Lyme Park, we got the car straightened up so that it could turn into the public car park lower down.

That was about all the excitement for the day, if you don’t count Peter driving down Anson Road, which is a steep hill currently well covered in hard packed snow and ice. Peter worked in Canada at one stage in his career, and has lost none of the driving skills he acquired there.

We got a good shop done, including a nice piece of beef for Christmas Day. The bus back was only about ten minutes late, which was really quite remarkable under the circumstances.

We’ve had a very quiet day today, with a relaxed start and a gentle walk down the hill to get a paper. After lunch, I went and took some photos of the seasonal scene:

Sanity ice bound at Poynton

Peter and Jan made it across in the afternoon for a present exchange and stayed for a cup of tea. We’re now looking forward to a quiet night; tomorrow we’ll do another shopping trip and in the afternoon a visit to the yard to check on progress.

I’ll post about that on the other blog tomorrow, and then again here on Thursday. After that, I’ll probably take a break from both blogs until the New Year, unless we have some drama to report.