First (Minor) Freeze of 2022

I mun admit that the Whether Forecast escaped me yesterday. A couple of times in the night while stoking Mr Stove I heard that characteristic ‘ice complaining as the Cardinal moves a little’ noise and dismissed it as the bletherings of a reality-deprived mind, thinking that perhaps a fender needed an adjustment. I also thought, idly, that things (id est me and my things) were a tad chilly. It was only when I eventually staggered out through the spout of the cafetière and opened the blinds that I realised that Messrs Canal & Co were skimmed over with ice. Not a lot, just enough to turn the swans into some sort of sad ice-breaking pantomime.

Lunge…. crunch… back-pedal… snort… lunge… crunch… back-pedal… snort…

Mr Stove has been given a slack handful of kindling and some extra coal, the better to provide a whoomf of warmthf. It doesn’t help that I did some laundry yesterday, so the inside of the Cardinal resembles the inside of a charity shop holding some sort of damp Clothesing Down Sale.

There’s ne’ery a lot of photosynthesis going on in the fields in view from the side-hatch. The view though might only be improved by the addition of a black-clad parson hurrying along the hedgerow, and a well-armed gingery fox chasing the local hunt in their pinks. It won’t happen though. This is England. We’d move to ‘Condition Eh? Whatever’, except that someone would have to change the bulb from its current taupe to one of mauve, and no-one here will be sufficiently bothered. Besides, Stores is probably closed and there won’t be an officer about to sign the chit anyway. England is chit these days.

Services nicely skimmed with ice except for those areas aound the boats. The Cyclists & Ramblers Trust’s working boat there seems to have either had difficulty squeezing in or to have come adrift. Moored Askance is a frame of mind, we’re told.

We’re supposed to be treated to a measure of sunshinery for most of today. I do hope so, the solar panels could do with a decent feed. It might save me a litre or three of diesel.

This is also the first (minor) freeze since the Cardinal was blacked. I wonder how long it will be today before the first boat comes past, and I have to try to not hear the sound of ice scraping my money off the hull? It’s rarely as bad as it sounds, praise be, but it does always sound similar to sheltering inside a tin bucket during an ice-meteorite shower.

If swans were in any way useful then they’d be breaking up the skim around my boat.

If they did that then I might feed them.

As it is… well… freeze, you nasty, useless critters, freeze…

A curry for lunch, methinks. Tis the weather for it.

Should I bung any of today’s images onto the website? Dunno. I’ll think about that. I have about thirty others to go up today, everything from Hong Kong scenes to psychedelic abstracts. I’ve been busy.

Ian Hutson @ FIne-Art ‘Merica / Pixels. Clickez-vousing on the link will open me in a new tab where a cove may browse safely and in anonymity. Greetings cards (with your personalised message inside) from £1.29 for 25, £1.70 or so for 10, jigsaws for about £30, and box-frame canvas prints &etceteras from about three hundred quid down to a tenner or so, everything is available in many splendid forms and sizes. Production takes the lion’s share obviously, but yes, I do get a slice of the action, and some day it may keep me in broccoli and OJ and hot fruity teasted toecakes.

Chin-chin, chaps,

Ian H., & Cardinal W.