Saturday 9 January 2010

Another Day in the Arctic.

Ice bound in Hillmorton.

Well last night wasn’t quite as cold as the night before but only by about 10C. Normally our central heating unit shuts down at 11pm and comes on again at 8am  but it’s been working overtime again starting up 3 or 4 times during the night every night for the last 4 nights.

Because of this I took the 2 x 20 litre jerry cans down to Canalbreaks for another refill of diesel. This should keep us going until the middle of next week when I will pay them another visit, because I cannot see anything moving on the canal for at least another 10 – 14 days unless we have an unseasonal heat wave. Well, dreams are free.

We have had another visit from some local youths who thought they were bullet proof by having a game of soccer on the ice. Derek on Uccello pointed out the error of their ways and told them that if the ice broke and they fell in, by the time the emergency services arrived they would be dead. With this in mind they departed. I know that the ice is between 2 and 3 inches thick in places but this is not uniform right across the canal and there could be weak spots unable to take much weight.

This afternoon Derek and I decided to work off some excess calories by collecting some water from the water point which is about 500 yards away. He did 3 and I did 4 trips which gave both of us about 70 litres each. Enough to keep us going for a few days. While we were busy doing this Carrie was busy baking and made us some glorious cinnamon bread and boy is it yum.  Aren’t we spoilt? Oh, the joys of Winter Continuous Cruising.

3 comments:

AussieNB said...

Hi Derek & Dot,
I was in contact with you about 18 months ago when we were considering buying a sponsor boat. You gave us good advice to consider! We ended up deciding not to go ahead with that plan and instead wait until we're in a position to spend a year or two in the UK before buying a boat.
We're wondering if you'd mind answering some questions for us about living on board a narrowboat.
Thanks!
Elli in OZ

Carol said...

Hi Derek and Dot - snow pictures are beautiful; glad you are coping; we are also ferrying water from tap to boat (when the tap is not frozen) We're stuck in the ice at great Haywood Marina at the moment and planning our next trip,
Happy New Year.

Derek and Dot said...

Hi Carol
Nice to see you have met up with Ann and Chas, we are all making the best of a bad situation, we are heading your way once the canal unfreezes.
Happy New Year to you both