Awaking to a cold misty morning, eerily beautiful, we started on our way from the outskirts of Harefield, pleasantly surprised that it was not raining. The fingers got very cold though! The rest of me was warm as could be. I certainly have perfected the layered look! We covered five locks, most in our favour and I even got a 10/10 for manoeuvring into one of them perfectly according to R! The lock at Croxley Moor was so difficult to open I had visions of a night’s stay!! A kind man on the towpath offered to help R push the lockgate open but even with the two of them and me assisting with the bow of the boat, it took three attempts before it budged!
At Rickmansworth (potty alert) R emptied the Elsan. We have a new policy – whenever the opportunity arises to empty the cassette we will do so. It’s the same with filling up with water – never miss an opportunity of a water tap. As we are needing to cover more distance per day than we did leisurely going south, we will encounter the water points more frequently. With the engine running at length plenty of hot water is on hand by the end of the day – we were able to enjoy a really deep (short!) bath this afternoon which warmed us up after all the bracing cold air! As R never normally has a bath more than 4″ deep you can imagine my indulgence did not go unnoticed! I also have a new laundry policy in line with my idea of keeping us as isolated as possible whilst travelling through T4. We can’t really use the washing machine whilst we still have a leak in the water system but if I hand-wash we can still spin the clothes and then dry with the heat of the stove and the radiators. So tonight saw me washing clothes in the bath, which I will spindry when the engine is running tomorrow and then dry in the evening over the stove. What a palaver! To avoid the supermarkets I also bought enough fresh provisions to last us the week most of which are being stored in the bath – it certainly is multifunctional!
We are beginning to see the challenges of winter cruising, one of them being the copious condensation buildup inside. Luckily we have a choice of beds because the mattress in the bedroom is damp all along the side touching the cabin wall. We need to pull it away from the wall but that in turn narrows the walkway. A roll of black sacks has come in very useful acting as a barrier but I don’t think it will solve the problem!
We’ve had some enjoyable towpath encounters in the past couple of days. An old boy we had chatted to when last moored near Harefield happened to be on the towpath when we had to move the boat in the dark. He was able to direct me to the best place to moor and thus helped me feel confident about steering the boat blind. A couple passing us on bikes stopped to say hallo – we had been neighbours in Berkhamsted! Another old boatman was the guy who had instructed me about the importance of the midrope on the boat and when I recognised him we had a great chat. He’d had a lovely Christmas being fed the best Christmas Dinner he had had in years by a lady who was a chef, on the boat next to his. Unfortunately, he told me, he’d managed somehow to upset her daughter. Something to do with the fact he’d been enjoying a few too many festive tipples prior to his dinner! Today, as we were moored up a couple passing just stopped to chat and we had a lengthy conversation which I found really encouraging. They were enthused by what we were doing as it transpired they wanted to do something along similar lines (but not on a narrowboat). When I asked if they would like prayer for anything S said close to his heart were the self employed. He really feels they have been over looked in all the Covid handouts from the government and many are struggling both financially and mentally.
As a final aside, I am so grateful to the young man who sorted out my mobile charging issues. No longer afeared of running low on battery, I was able to enjoy a couple of hours of trickster bridge with my younger daughter and 2 good friends. A blessing indeed!
NarrowboatTLC 