Today was the start of a fairly normal job for me, but, it occurred to me early on today, that it was sufficiently distinct, that I would like to document it. This is therefore a detailed diary entry for the weekend.
I woke at 02:00 and got up about 1/2 hour later. (My sleep patterns become very erratic during the winter, as the short days impact quite heavily on my metabolism and circadian rhythms). Over the next couple of hours, I had breakfast - some bread and butter pudding that I had from yesterday; I added coal to the stove that is the core of my living space on the boat; I read some of the novel that I am currently reading (Split Second by David Baldacci); had a coffee and did a little more on the software construction project I am currently working on. At 06:00 I went off to Tesco's in the car, in order to have suffient food on board to last me today, tomorrow, and Monday, which is when I anticipate returning to my moorings. I got back to the boat, did the stove, which involved emptying it of ash from overnight and loading it with coal. I also, as I returned to the boat, dismounted the TV aerial from the boat. When I came to do this I found that it had jammed in place, and I had to get a variety of tools out in order to remove it. Normally this is a five second job, but this morning it probably took 10-15 minutes. As a result, by the time I got back inside the boat, I was fairly cold, so I had a coffee, and sat in my lounge until I was warm again. I then went to prepare myself for cruising the boat up to Stoke Bruerne, which involved changing into my winter clothing. This involves putting on a base layer - silk leggings, and long sleeved high necked silk vest; thick socks; a pullover, high necked fleece; fleece lined trouser; a jacket fleece, and a waterproof and windproof anorak. The addition of gloves, a silk balaclava, and a warm, insulated hat completed the outfit. This is all necessary, because it is a cold day - my estimate at 07:00 was -2 degrees C, and cruising the boat involves standing fairly motionless outside at the rear of the boat for as long as one is cruising. This does mean that one can get very, very cold quite easily.
I then prepared the boat, which only means lifting the side fenders onto the boat, removing the mooring chains and ropes, attaching the tiller, and starting the engine. I finally started off at 07:45, which was a bit later than I had intended, and it was fully light.
The cruise up to Stoke Bruerne, which is where I am going to collect my delivery of coal tomorrow, took five minutes over two hours, and I covered six miles to the bottom of the locks. It was a typical, decent winter's day - cold, overcast, and not much wind. En route I saw what I thought was a wind blown collection of reeds and debris which had heaped up to a greater height than normal. While travelling I did not see any other boat moving, and saw only one person who was walking from Cosgrove to Stoke and we were near each other virtually the whole way to Stoke. When there were no moored boats for me to pass, I was travelling just faster than he was, and when I slowed to pass moored boats, he was walking just faster than the boat.
I got to Stoke Bruerne, and as anticipated, there was not much space for mooring. In fact there were only two spaces available - one either end of a boat near the end of the mooring. I first tried mooring up at the space the far end of the boat, to find that the gap was about 55 feet long, which is a couple of feet shorter than my boat. So I had to try the other space, and found that it was exactly long enough for my boat - 57' 6" with perhaps 6" to spare. After I had shut the engine off, I had a coffee, completed reading the novel I had been reading, I then walked back to Stoke Bruerne, so that I could pick my car, so I will have it available tomorrow. Although I could have collected in one (returen) trip tomorrow, I want to go Northampton just after 12:00 to attend a Tai Ji class, where I am doing some training. As a result I need to have the car where the boat it, as there is not enough daylight at this time of year, to travel up to Stoke, collect my coal delivery, travel back to Cosgrove, and then get off to the class. During the walk back I saw that what I had thought were compressed reeds and other debris in the canal, was half of one of the very large straw bales created by combine harvesters, and which had obviously come off one of the fields en-route.
Once I had picked up the car (the walk back having taken exactly the same length of time as the boat coming up) I went and bought a fizzy drink, and some sweets, before returning to the boat, and parking the car nearby.
I sat down and had something more to drink, and sat and completed my computer based cruising log, which I keep so as to be able to record my cruised, engine hours, fuel consumption etc. and then composed this diary entry. I am now going to go on and do some more work on my software project. I will return to this diary entry and finish the description of my day before I go to bed. It is now 15:40.
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