Oh, Snow!

18th, 19th & 20th February

I feel really sorry for those who have adopted the liveaboard lifestyle in the last six months, because this winter is driving me bananas. All I can say is, don’t give up, it’s normally much easier than this. Usually we have one or at most two fairly short lived episodes of frost and ice, and otherwise it’s the wind and rain that we have to contend with.

This winter, we’ve had the long freeze, and then the ice has retreated and returned and retreated again, so that every time you think you're clear of it, back it comes.

We made a lazy start on Thursday morning, and were pleased to see that the ice was looking dull and grey, indicating that the thaw was well advanced. I walked down the hill to get a paper and we spent most of the morning doing computer stuff. After lunch, there was very little ice left and we took Sanity down to the water point.

Once moored again, we had a bit of exercise taking the dirty oil from the day before down to the tip. A full water tank meant that we could still shower, so I got Sheila to cut my hair before washing the bits off.

Yesterday, we woke to find snow on the ground again. It looked pretty wet, but it wasn’t an encouraging sight. We plodged over to the boatyard for the weekly review of progress on Sanity Again; Peter was away so we just took the pictures and came away.

At midday, we had just made the lunchtime sandwiches when our Ocado delivery driver rang to say he was ten minutes away. We shared a quick mug of soup, and I gobbled a sandwich before we went over to the yard to receive our groceries, two hours before they were scheduled to arrive.

It just goes to show, not everything is delivered late at a boat builders. It gave us an excuse to have a coffee and natter with Susan, which was very pleasant.

We then lugged the bags back to Sanity and finished eating lunch. Stowing the goods takes a while; I must say that this strategy of ordering groceries for delivery means I’m keeping the cupboards well stocked.

Having uploaded a set of pictures to Flickr, we did a blog entry on Building Sanity Again.

There was no ice in sight this morning, but the forecast is for another freeze. We walked down into Poynton to buy some fresh fruit and veg, and a couple of nice loaves from Greggs. I also popped into Mates, the DIY store, for a roll of that boaters' essential, Duck Tape, and took the opportunity to buy a big funnel.

For the last six years, I’ve been using a rather small one for putting oil into the engine. My bad shoulder means that Sheila has been assisting with oil changes*, and she has persuaded me to do the rational thing and get a big funnel that lets the oil flow in reasonably quickly.

Sheila ran a further washload, thereby bringing the laundry up to date, and after lunch we went back to the water point to refill the tank. We’ve reversed Sanity into her mooring, so that if need be we can pump out the toilet tank if we are frozen in for any length of time.

The weather outlook is for another five or six days of overnight frost; when we get into March we may actually see some milder weather. At this rate, we will be doing Sanity Again’s shakedown cruise in the wind and rain.

*I.e., doing all the work.