Coldest day so far.

Over night the temperature got down to a chilly –4.7 C, but as always we were nice and snug inside the back cabin with the stove fire staying in all night.

There was a definite sense that Winter has arrived, with a layer of ice on the canal, this time it covered the whole stretch of the canal including the basin, which bought back memories of the past three years when we have been frozen in. This spell is however not expected to last.

The Harborough swans were finding movement difficult because to get anywhere they had to break the ice first. They certainly did not have to worry about going hungry though, because people were coming out and feeding them throughout the day. After a lovely brisk walk along the towpath, Paddy and I got back to the boat, to find Keith cooking breakfast, which was large Mushrooms on Toast, one of my favourite breakfasts. After breakfast, I made sure both fires were made up, I then got the coal in for the day.
Whilst we are on our Winter mooring, I am filling the water tank once a week. The water taps along the towpath are so slow that it takes over an hour to fill the tank, so leaving it till the tank is empty would been a good couple of hours waiting if not longer, as it was it took well over an hour to fill the tank and that was only after I defrosted the water tap. This the joy of living on a boat during the Winter, but I love this time of year and so just get on with the job in hand no matter what the weather. Water tank filled and hose put away for another week, it was time for a coffee and my mind turned to what to do next.
I got on with making a Turkey thigh stew, which contains, onion, carrots, potatoes, turnip, parsnip, mushrooms and soya beans, having got it cooking on top of the back cabin stove, I applied the lid and put it in the stove to slow cook all day.

Yesterday I began to do some spider web embroidery. I am planning to make a mobile phone holder if all goes well. I bought the embroidery silks, material and hoop from the market yesterday in Market Harborough, I think it will keep me busy for hours.
As the day has worn on into the afternoon the smell of the Turkey stew is creeping along the boat making my tummy rumble. I will be adding some dumplings to the mix later on. But for now I am going to put my feet up and watch a Sunday film. So have a wonderful day and thank you for reading my blog ;0).

Congratulations to Charlie Brooks on becoming Queen of the Jungle last night. I really enjoyed this series and found it was to close to call as to who would win it. I really have enjoyed watching it and cannot wait for next years. One of my favourites was Eric Bristow purely because he said it was it was and was just himself.