Man Flu

Dear reader I apologize for the lack of a post yesterday.  Man Flu caught me on Wednesday afternoon and I spent much of yesterday trying to free myself.  I don’t believe I managed to get any sleep last night, however Jan tells me she heard me snoring whispering sweet nothings.

Today we managed a trip to the Merry Hill Centre where we collected a couple of packages we’d ordered.  The post office in the centre will accept mail using the poste restante system.

We now have a replacement catalyzer for the Lockgate diesel stove (top item).  The original catalyzer is working but has developed a bulge in the outer core half way down.  Actually I’m suffering from the same condition!

The bottom three items are the replacement battery for the Garmin Nuvi gps and a couple of small tools I’ll need to disassemble the unit.

We have been moored in Merry Hill for a week and the canal had frozen over for the last three days.  Although the water tank was still ¾ full we decided it might be prudent to move back to Bumble Hole and be closer to a water tap.  The ice looked like it had melted but in reality there was just a thin layer of water sitting on top of the ice.  

The ice made for a slow but noisy trip to Blowers Green.  Things got a little tricky above the lock where there is a basin with a hard right turn to continue on towards Bumble hole.  The basin was iced over making it very difficult to turn Waiouru.  Eventually I broke the ice with the boat pole and then Jan and I pulled the boat out of the lock and around the bend onto the water point.  The water pressure here is rather poor and it took an hour to top up the tank.

Jan thought she saw a Robin flying above the water on the far side of the basin.  However the flash of blue suggested it might be a Kingfisher.  It landed on a post on the other side of the basin.  I used the camera zoom to take a photo.  The Kingfisher is on the top of the white post in the middle of the photo.

I couldn’t see it either! 

Digital zoom in…….

We continued on towards Bumble hole breaking a path through the ice.  Eventually it got dark and we had to use the headlight.  The ice cleared just before Bumble Hole where we found only one other boat on the designated moorings.

We’ll probably be here for a few days.