Baby, it's even colder outside

3rd & 4th January

It looks as if the next few days are going to be much of a muchness, so these posts may be quite short for a while.

Yesterday we woke to a bright morning after a cold night and pottered about for a bit after breakfast. Then we summoned our reserves of energy and used the self pump out machine to empty most of the toilet tank into the septic tank. Luisa had told us that it was due to be emptied later this month, which is just as well as it is now quite full.

After lunch, we serviced the engine, doing a routine oil and filter change and I topped up the batteries as usual.

In view of the wintery conditions, I made a particularly substantial stew for dinner, which we had with creamed potato and lightly steamed Savoy cabbage; comfort food just when it’s needed.

It was seriously cold last night, and we were told that the temperature this morning was -8 or -9ºC. We’ve now boated through many winters, including some very cold ones, but this was the first time for us that the ice was gripping the boat so hard that it did not move when we walked round inside. Normally, you know you are frozen in when you get out of bed first thing in the morning and there’s a crunching noise as the boat rocks and the edge of the ice scrapes against the hull. This morning it was eerily silent.

This was the morning when we were supposed to be undertaking the delayed tow of the next Braidbar shell, but there was no remote possibility of that happening. We gathered together some stuff for recycling, including the used oil from yesterday, and cautiously walked down to the Braidbar yard.

The going is as tricky underfoot as it has been all winter, with hard packed snow turning to ice in many places. We called in at the yard to say Happy New Year to folk and to ask for some advice about the Webasto timer/programmer on Just Siviting. I wanted to check that its settings were correct, since we are keeping an eye on it at the moment.

They did not have a manual to hand, but I got enough information from Peter Mason to let me work out what was going on.

Having disposed of our recycling we tried a different route back to the canal side so as to avoid the worst of the slippy stuff, but everywhere is much the same. You really need crampons on your boots to walk on it safely.

After lunch, we moved a couple of bags of coal from their stack to the bow as the coal box was getting low. Sheila had the bright idea of using our wood carrying bag as a cradle for carrying the coal and this worked very well; it let us stand up straight with the bag between us and walk on a much firmer and more balanced base.

We then ambled down to the water point to refill one of our small containers, and found a gang of the other moorers there filling big drums in the back of a 4x4. Some of these moorers get all their water this way; they don’t seem to take their boat off the mooring even when they could do so.

The rest of the afternoon has been spent quietly on the boat. I’m planning more comfort food tonight in the shape of a haggis with mashed potato and a mixture of carrots and parsnips.

The weather forecasts are giving the first hints of a possible thaw starting this time next week, but it’s far too soon to get excited about that.