Plenty of water.

There was a waterfall over the lock-gates when I went up to the Boat Shop for some more of their delicious organic bread. They have been running this little place for sixteen years and during that time have made £5,000 for various charities of their choice.

                               

They don’t make ‘em like that anymore, do they ? This solid arched iron-work window has been in Braunston Wharf for over 200 years, amazing! Reminiscent of the children's tv programme, Play School, don't you think? I like the mix of coloured stone that was used to build this house. The date-stone inset on the front of it says 1647.

  An new lake had appeared in the field by bridge 90 and was increasing by the day. The Seagulls, Canada geese and Ducks were making full use of it too.

Brighton and Nuneaton came past and moored breasted up just beyond bridge 89.

They had made use of one of the wooden posts driven in to support the soft edging, put in about a year ago. The sheep had to learn to tiptoe around all the puddles as the rain drained down from the fields and the water level rose.

                              

We had some clear skies with a thin layer of frost appearing overnight. Between the sunny intervals, we had some dramatic grey stormy skies.

Sitting tight.

 

Hey, wait for me!

There are so many lovely circular walks around this area which provide great pleasure for us and many others. We were however literally ‘sitting tight’ yesterday as the water drained into the canal from the surrounding fields and roads raising the boat about four inches. We are pleased to see that the water subsided overnight and we are rocking on slack ropes again.

Guess where?

Here we are on one of our favourite moorings where we have been happily iced in along with our friends in winters past. As there are three water taps along through Braunston we took the opportunity to do as much washing as possible before we moved on. 

 

 

 

                                                                                           

Surprisingly few boats are moored hereabouts and only three Long Term Permit Holders remain near Gongoozlers rest.

      

With all that non-stop heavy rain for 24 hours midweek the canal turned muddy and rose about four inches with quite a flow on it carry debris along.  Unfortunately Bottle had to brave the weather to go into Screwfix in Daventry to buy some new mcb’s. We had sniffed out an electrical smouldering smell coming from the control panel at the stern and turned everything off to investigate. When the switches were removed two of them had melted together. It is amazing how this could be detected from the our chairs in the front of the boat, noses are wonderful things! Meanwhile I went off to Sainsbury's for a few things. We both returned quite soggy and muddy from trudging through the quagmire along the towpath. The mcb’s were duly replaced and we stoked up the fire to dry our sodden clothes and boots. Then we settled down for a rest with a nice warm drink with our favourite Pecan Danish pastries as a sort of reward.

Duck+Pelican.

Weather Prediction.

We have had some frosty mornings  that have quickly evaporated in the morning sunrise creating a hovering mist for a while. It seems almost impossible to predict when the canal will freeze over this year. In 2009 it froze on December 19th, in 2010 it was December 26th, and has already frozen over once this year in February 2012. So I wonder if it will freeze over for a second time, or maybe it won’t again until 2013, who knows! All we can do is keep our supplies topped up and hope for the best.