A pleasant couple of days.

Saturday 25th January.

A very cold and frosty beginning to the day, the temperature dropped to -2.5C overnight, so everything around us was frozen, including patches of the canal.
After breakfast, we took the boat down to the Thrupp sanitary station, where we wanted to wind Hadar. On arriving opposite the station a boat was moored on new bollards near the lift bridge. The bollards had been put in a couple of days previous, we watched as they were concreted into position and our immediate thought was, how long would it be before boats moored on them who were not using the lift bridge. Well it only took a couple of days. We were told that BW had removed mooring rings from there to stop boats mooring up, and now that there are bollards they will find they will have the same problem. This meant that it made winding a little more difficult. Not only that as we were winding, another boat came through the lift bridge, without waiting for us to finish our manoeuvre, which I felt was very rude. We took over the mooring at the sanitary station, from another boat which moved off through the lift bridge. We took on water, emptied both of the toilet cassettes, and got rid of domestic rubbish. I also added a couple of books to the collection outside of the Elsan. The books are there for anyone to take; you just leave a small donation in the box. Whilst we waited for the water tank to fill Steve (PJ) from NB Ocelot joined us for a natter. With the tank eventually filled, we then made our way back to our mooring near Shipton Bridge. Later in the afternoon, Bones very kindly took me shopping at Sainsburys, which was very sweet of her. So Keith and I can eat again for a while. Many thanks Bones.

Sunday 25th January.

We had a very pleasant day, polishing the back cabin and engine room brass and copper, so it all looks very shiny for five minutes. Whilst we were in the cleaning mood a family walked past the boat and enquired about house coal, as they have an open fire in their house. They wanted to know what would be the best coal to burn and ended up leaving with a bag of house coal to try. I did not envy them carrying the 25kg bag from Shipton Bridge to The Jolly Boatman, it must be at least a mile along the towpath.
We also had a knock on the boat asking about buying some coal from us later in the day, which we said was fine, even though it was Sunday, what we did not expect was the time he arrived to collect his 2 bags of coal. he knocked on the boat at 10pm. Both Keith and I dispatched two bags of Taybrite from the hold for the guy and gladly took his money, before climbing back into the boat to continue watching "A Short Stay In Switzerland" with Julie Walters playing the role of Dr Ann Turner. It was an amazing drama and certainly got us talking about what we would do in her situation. Julie Walters was as always fantastic in her role and made it very convincing.
It was then time for bed. We would be making a move tomorrow.