It was going to be a busy day, but manageable. Yesterday afternoon I moved "Hazel" across the Tame Aqueduct to tie her alongside the premises of Dixon & Smith (motor engineers) to charge her batteries. There was a skim of ice on the surface of the water, but nothing to impede progress. As usual I returned at about 9 pm to change over from one battery bank to another. Everything was covered in frost and moving about on the boat had become rather dicey. I foresaw problems for the morning.
At first light I returned to disconnect the chargers. The boat was locked in ice. All the lines were like iron and the whole boat was covered in a treacherous coating of the slippery stuff. I summoned the wonderful Aaron and, like genie from a bottle, he showed up just when he was needed.
The sun rose bright and sparkling, but it was bitterly cold.
I gingerly moved about the boat untying stiff lines and trying to coil them. I had to throw a line to Aaron on the towpath. Easier said than done when it's frozen stiff, but, after several tries we succeeded.
Aaron is strong as the proverbial ox. He pulled and pulled, but the boat wouldn't budge until I had broken some ice with the shaft, a tricky business. I nearly slipped off the roof a couple of times. The cold from the frosted shaft quickly ate through my gloves. numbing my fingers.
Gradually, with much creaking, "Hazel" moved a bit, then stopped. I broke more ice. She moved again. I broke more ice. She moved a bit more. At last she got into a position where Aaron had a straight forward pull. The boat surged forward through the shattering ice.
We stopped on the aqueduct for coffee and finger warming.
At the junction the boat had to make a 90 degree right turn. difficult in ice, but it was thinner there and Nessie had arrived to help Aaron to pull her round into clear water. We tied her on the towpath side, her stern end kicking out a bit because of the low water levels.
The plan had been that me and Aaron would be at the shop at 10 am to do deliveries. This is not my job but we currently lack a volunteers driver. It was gone 10 when we tied up.
A crowd of CRT volunteers and organisers were crowding round the museum gate. They were on a mission to rid the waterway of floating pennywort.
Since we've had the Land Rover it's had a problem starting in cold weather. Batteries don't seem to be holding their charge, though they're perfectly good ones. I bought a new battery, but it had the same problem. Something seems to be draining the power whilst the vehicle is parked. My strategy was to swap batteries when it failed to start, then charging the one I'd taken off and keeping it in the boot when needed. This worked until the new battery disappeared. I bought an engine starting pack, which packs an incredible punch for its size. Knowing that it would struggle in such cold I connected up the starter pack before I tried starting.
The engine turned over a few times but showed no interest in firing. We connected jump leads to Nessie's car, but this didn't supply enough power. We left the car running to slowly build up the power. One of the CRT volunteers came over to tell us we were doing it all wrong.
I mentioned in passing that the second battery had gone missing. "Was it a grey one" asked Nessie. " I think so" I replied. He went and fetched it out of "Queen". We connected it up and I turned the key. The engine burst into life!
We drove to the shop where our other volunteer muscle man, Josh, was waiting for us. Only an hour late. Mike had a long list of deliveries and collections for us.
One of the latches on the trailer doors had broken. I thought it would be an easy repair when we got to the shop. It wasn't. I had to keep doing bodges to keep it fastened all day.
So, off we went to Oldham for our first pick up. I won't go into the complications of the day's collections and deliveries. Suffice it to say that we had our share of difficulties finding places, getting things through doors, dismantling things, putting things back together etc.
I was scheduled to meet Lisa at 1pm to strip the beds on "Hazel" ready to be made up for our next guests. There was no way I was going to make it. I rang her, no answer. I rang Nessie. No answer. I left messages. Eventually I got communication going. Nessie had driven home to change trousers as he'd slipped on "Forget me Not" and gone in up to his waist.
Nessie let Lisa into the boat and I explained over the phone what she needed to do. She took this lovely photo.
It was nearly dusk when we finally got all our delivery jobs done. I went to "Hazel" to drop off mattresses and collect various not needed things then called at the shop to put the spare Land Rover battery on charge. Em was there chatting with Mike as they prepared to close. I gave her a lift home, pleased to have finally got all my morning tasks done.