The Work-Boats are a-Moving

through the (light, ish) ice, even if I’m not.

I hasten to add that the gentleman on the boat shown above is one of the workmen or volunteers of the Trust, most decidely not an example of the dismal “senior” corporate gestalt. The two are totally different beasts. One actually works while the other, the directors and trustees species, thinks that riding up in the lift to their desk without spilling their soy-latté is an achievement worthy of an increased annual bonus.

I have hogh hipes that this (current spell of) ice will be a gone thing tomorrow or the day afterwards. Thereupon I shall move for gazundering, watering and to be the better placed for comestibles. Ing. Comestiblesing.

I can’t help but wonder if, were there many examples of small wildlife around (and there are not), would they look upon a frozen canal with glee and oik back and forth across the ice to visit long-lost relatives on the other side?

Unlike the River Thames and its famous freezings (most recent one being the winter of 1962-3) the local wildlife hasn’t organised a single “frost fair” that I’ve seen. No young hedgehogs playing football, no royal foxes shooting at marks, no enterprising rats roasting chestnuts, gert yer luvvly chestnuts ‘ere, half a groat for a bucketful.

Cardinal Wolsey, a.k.a. The Royal Barge Narrowboat, well-frozzed.

Once Messrs Work-Boat had gone through (travelling from front of frame to rear, Barbridge towards Middle-de-wich) the Cardinal was still surrounded by ice, but with the added option of crunching out to a (temporary) pre-cleared path. No fanks.

Inger-Lish weather being what it is (something that happens to a little island in the North Atlantic with only what – in my day – was called The North-Atlantic Drift to warm its cockles) the sunrises still surprise. Here’s the day afore yesterday’s:

They don’t last long. Full of Eastern Promise but rather like our politics, they give way in moments to dullth and grey and shabby and mediocre without end.

Even the ice on the canal has its moods.

…and peculiar patterns.

The ice was most decidely still ice even though it looks odd. When I persuaded the ice off the Cardinal’s rear tonneau cover and flingingly flung the frozen flat puddles into the canal they just shattered on top. The dark patches are, oddly, as solidly frozen as is the rest.

It was really most satisfying. Lob – smash. Like tennis but with frozen, oddly-shaped balls and very little to do with tennis at all. Wheeeee… smash. I wonder if I woke up the fish below? Perhaps the dark patches are where the ice is a degree or two warmer – less cold – due to fish-farts accumulating below? Well it’s a theory, clever clogs. What’s yours?

Here’s a purely gratuitous photomagraph of a passing train on the embankment.

So what of today? Well, so far dull and grey, as predicted. Messrs BARGUS is due back sometime, probably tomorrow would be my guess. He called but was running late, low on stock and in a rush to get to someone in combustible dire straits. We agreed, in the pitch-dark, to meet again at Philippi* on his return. BARGUS is dodging about between canal blockages and stoppages at the moment, restricted as much (see the previous post’s maps) as anyone else.

*Philippi is nothing whatsoever to do with 3.141592653589793238462643 or even a chap called Philip.

It’s all go here on t’canals, you know. The ash bucket’s about three-quarters full, so I mun remember to bung its contents into the ecosystem soon, before I add fresh ashes to it and have to wait for them to cool down. I shall have to walk up top a couple of times today, once with a couple of containers for potable water, once with a gazunder, j.i.c. &etc. There’s the last of the curry to finish up and decisions to be made, always with the decisions already. Rice or Naans?

The canal’s half water, half cocktail-ice now, it’s all looking very messy indeed.

Right, I’d best get on, otherwise there won’t be a child in the house fed and washed before bed-time, and then where will we be, eh?

Chin-chin, chaps.

Ian H.