Bird sitings in Blue Haven corner

While moored up in Blue Haven, we found a random pack of peanuts in the cupboard. We had no idea why we had them, as they had skins on and we don't eat them that way... So Pete, the bird lover amongst us, decided we needed to share them. On the way home from the train station last week, we stopped by Tebbs and bought a bird feeder. Within no time, the feathered kingdom had informed the known network and we had feeders. Lots. We had to go get more nuts. We'll have to pass on the task to others when we untie and pull out to the canal!!!!

Enjoying the mains...

We're still in Blue Haven as we think about where we go next... But we have enjoyed the electrics and almost mains water and therefore all the laundry.  Who would have thought laundry would be fun???

Pete watched the Swan family break ice again the marina today, this time the adults behind the sprog, watching and encouraging the signet as s/he pushed away at the ice to get to our stern for food.

Blue Haven for a spell

We've been moored up in our usual little landscape of Blue Haven for just three nights, but it feels like weeks! We've got through loads of laundry (every sheet we owned was due for washing...), met up with friends and enjoyed seeing the Forager Family again (Swans Rosie, Jim, Robin and Chris ) though one of the youngsters appears to be flying the nest. We have not frozen in and luckily all the heavy rains have been at night so that our afternoons have been blazing sunshine. Wonderful. Elizabeth finished a cross stitch, Pete's been taking photographs and we managed to fit some wood to keep the window blinds in place. We'll stay here doing a bit of small DIY, filling the store cupboards and generally preparing for going out again. We'll let you know!

No coms in Marston Doles and water management

Well, we unfroze on Monday night in Fenny Compton, but Elizabeth and Pete had to go to Oxford on Tuesday, so we couldn't set out until Wednesday. By then the canal had frozen over again, but just a thin layer. We decided to move in any case and set out late morning. We were certainly breaking ice and were grateful to pass a British Waterways working boat going the opposite direction about an hour after we set out, as all the ice behind it would be broken already! We only passed three other boats on the journey and moored up at the very country Marston Doles just after lunch. No streetlights, no sound of train, no motorway sounds... all idylic except no coverage on Virgin (our personal mobiles) or Vodaphone (our internet) and only a little on Orange, with antenna, our home number. At least we had a little coms! But that's why we haven't blogged until now.

We set out from Marston Doles (in other words, the top of the 9 lock Napton flight) this morning at 8:30 and made a sweet turn into Blue Haven Marina at 3pm this afternoon. We had an interesting time in one lock of the flight. The pound was so low between us and the next lock that we sat in the upper lock for a while with the upper gate sluice open and the lower gate sluice open in order to allow water to flow down from our pound to the pound below, filling it up a little for our journey in it. Elizabeth managed the tiller at this time and found much more energy in the water than anticipated! Finally we filled the lock one more time from the upper pound in order to let that much more water into the lower pound. By the time we pulled out, we had managed to raise the level of the pound by nearly a foot - enough to give us the draught we needed to move to the next one. Apparently the lock gates at the bottom of the lock we were going to leak considerably, hence, emptying the pound between the locks. We expected to do lock management, but never quite so much water management! Luckily, there is a BW office at Napton Bottom Lock, and we were able to tell the story to a grateful maintenance guy at the lock.

Freeze ends; wind begins!

It's the 12th of January now, and the ice more or less melted last night, but the wind and rain have picked up significantly. So we have decided to stay in Fenny Compton just a little longer. We spent the weekend welcoming Jeffrey back to Bella on Saturday, then taking him to the airport on Sunday for his return to Australia. Today sees us connecting long extension leads to plug in to the Wharf Inn to do the laundry.

What fun!

Proud Pete and fuel

Here is Pete, now master of the portable fuel pump. OK, here is how it works. Pete gets the fuel can filled with road diesel, taking the can in Reg to a filling station. Now that the taxation has changed, we can get diesel at any filling station and the road version is much cleaner and more environmentally friendly, as well as cheaper. He puts the fuel can next to Bella on the tow path. Then he inserts one end of a special hose in the fuel filler point on Bella and the other in the fuel can. In between is a pump - the small thing you can see attached to the hose on the deck, just next to the drill. Why the drill? The pump has the equivalent of a drill bit which fits to the drill to power the pump. The drill is the battery powered one, so once completely charged up, the pump was working wirelessly. What things we have learned!

Just to remind readers - we have to go through all this as we are still iced in and there is no way we can get to the boat filling station. So we are filling up with 18 to 19 litres a day until we get to a full level. At a 220 litre capacity and a daily use of about 6-7 litres, this will take a little while (!). But at least we have the capacity. And yesterday, Pete got us filled up with water by the use of two (2!) hose reel extensions. One we already had, but we bought another one, the flat kind to take less space. This easily covered the 50 metres between Bella and the watering point, thankfully, not frozen. And in between all that, he travels back an forth to a sewage point with cassettes. And today we made bread, scones, spiced biscuits and the vegetable stock is simmering on the stove.

Still in Fenny and ice

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Just to let you know, we are still here. It is the 8th of January and boat dwellers behind us had to give up and go home to Scotland. They were using their boat share, but found that once the sewage filled up and needed pumped out, they could not wait out the weather any more. One more reason to be pleased we have our cassette toilet which we can empty just by using the bicycle, the trolley or the car to take our full cassettes to a sewage point for emptying. A little smug, but we had this conversation with Barry at Blue Haven when we popped up there yesterday for our post. He told us of the frustration of so many frozen in boat owners, stuck with needing to be pumped out...

The one picture is dear Bella, snow on both sides. Most unusual! Today, the towpath has thawed only just in the last hour, and the canal is showing signs of breaking up a little. We won't move until other boats do though; we have done our new blacking little good by the ice breaking we have done so far!

The other picture is Josie on a sitting and viewing spot she has discovered. We suspect she uses this new seat (the top step out to the stern deck) when we are not here, but as we have been aboard quite a bit we have seen things she does far more often. So here she is, caught by Cassie the camera (of course the camera has a name!).