Thoughts from a warm house

The recent weather and the blogs of the live aboard boaters have made us feel rather glad we do not live aboard. Although the House decorating activity has been pretty frantic to catch up before xmas arrives, the ability to watch the storm rage from our lounge seems far more preferable. I remembered back to September when were lashed by the Hurricane that had made its way from the States. We holed up in Penkridge for a couple of days but getting there proved entertaining. Particularly on the stretch just before Acton Trussel, there was no cover, and at one point a gust of wind bounced us around in a bridge hole. The depth of water meant I couldn’t put any more revs on to gain control so I had to let the boat do its own thing. I was reminded of this by some photographs and comments by Geoff on Seyellas blog which shows the boat being blown sideways.

Even our own experience back in September was nothing like the recent spell of high winds. Even if you are moored up you have to be mindful of trees which may be blown down – and there seem to have been many of those over the last few days Narrowboat  World showed one such example on the Market Harborough Arm. Hard to imagine what it must be like if something like that lands on the roof in the middle of the night. There is certainly plenty of vegetation lining our canals so this will become an ever increasing problem. I must admit after our own experience we were only to pleased to get to a mooring that was sheltered I didn’t even consider the very large tree that was acting as a wind break opposite the hotel at Acton Trussel.

At least those living aboard have not had to put up with being iced in yet. It hard to imagine but this time last year we had already had a couple of weeks of the icy/snowy freezing weather. At least we have had some rain here in the East Midlands but it will take several months of above average rainfall to fill up the aquifers and reservoirs. We do not plan to head south at all next year for that reason. Plus our new berth at Pillings Lock means we can head North and I rather fancy tackling the tidal Trent and then the Ouse to see if we can get as far as Rippon. The navigation guides have arrived so I can start making some detailed plans once I have finished with the paint brushes next week.