Winter reluctantly sidles away

2nd & 3rd February

We are slowly emerging from winter in fits and starts. Yesterday, the ice was almost gone first thing in the morning, and by the time I had walked down the hill to buy a paper it was hard to spot the floating patches that were left. We had booked an Ocado delivery for the 1 pm to 2 pm slot, and planned to have an early lunch before walking over to the yard to take it.

This scheme had to be modified when the Ocado driver rang just before half eleven to say that he only had our drop off to do, and would we take it early? Nothing loth, we nipped over there, planning to store the bags in the bungalow and collect them when we boated over to refill the water tank.

However, when we saw the limited number of bags involved, we decided just to walk back carrying it all. It turned out that this decision was only marginally correct, as our hands were pretty sore by the time we got back to the boat. Nonetheless, it was good to get everything stashed away in nice time for lunch.

Whilst on the water point, I nipped into the yard and had conversations with Peter, Reg and John about a number of design details on Sanity Again. I also collected the draft brochure about Sanity which ABNB had sent. By the time I had done all this, the water tank was nearly full and we boated back to the mooring.

The rest of the day passed quietly; there were a few minor corrections to the brochure to be emailed to ABNB, and further progress was made with the layout and design of The Beale Park Bulletin.

Today has seen winter come sneaking back just a litle, in that there was a skin of ice on the canal this morning, and some rather wet snow is falling in a desultory fashion as I write this. It stayed dry long enough for the trip down the hill for a newspaper, however, after we had made an extremely lazy start once we knew we wouldn’t be moving the boat today.

This afternoon, we got a bit of exercise breaking up a pallet which we had rescued from the cut the other day, so that we have a new supply of kindling. Apart from that, there’s been very little to tempt us out of doors. At least we have the consolation that this is the last official month of winter, and although the forecast looks very soggy, there’s no real risk of another big freeze.

We have no special plans for tomorrow, but will be doing our weekly review of progress on Sanity Again on Friday morning. If the weather has stayed mild, we might actually boat to Marple on Saturday; my boots are now seriously leaking, and I really must get a replacement pair.