Jack Frost On The March.

Hi Friends.

Wow,Jack Frost has certainly been busy, this past couple of mornings. I do so love this time of year. Yesterday morning it was -4.2 C and this morning it was down to -5.8 C and we have ice on the surface of the water. Joy of all joys in my opinion.

Of course I realise that if you have to got work etc, it is probably not to your liking,so please do not shout at me :-)

Our pond is frozen over. I must remember to put a ball in the water to stop it freezing over completely. We do not have any fish in it yet, so no worries.

Our mooring has not actually thawed out from yesterday, so we have frost on top of frost, which makes it even more beautiful.

We are having water issues in the Arm. C&RT are working on the bottom lock at Hatton,but Cape Locks were still open, so boats were coming up through Cape Locks, winding outside of the Arm and then mooring up, so they were taking our water and nothing has been coming down the Hatton flight. After complaints to C&RT, they closed Cape Locks as well, which has annoyed boats caught above Cape Locks. Yesterday evening we began to lose water again and as you can see in the photograph above, boats are beginning to list again. We are pushed out anyway, there is an obstruction in the water under our boat, which means if we were tight up against the pontoon, we would be listing right over by now.

I do not think the temperature will get up much today, so with both fires going, we will stay in and continue to be cosy. Keith had to go to the Post Office to send off a parcel, but I am staying in.

I have an update on the freezer and fridge/freezer. Yesterday a nice gentleman called John from Leamington-Spa came to our aid. He arrived just after lunch to look at our ailing appliances. He thinks our freezer needs re-gasing. This is a new thing to us both, but if that is the case it will be easy enough to do, so he took the freezer away with him. As for the fridge/freezer, he thinks the thermostat has died, probably due to a bit breaking off on the back, but good news he has one in his workshop. So he is going to re-gas the freezer, leave it for 48 hours to see if it is leaking and let us know. If all is well, he will be back with the freezer and he will repair the fridge freezer, so fingers are crossed that things may not be as bad as we first thought, but then of course that could all change and we could still be eating bread and dripping on Christmas day. This cold weather is a bonus right now, because our chilled food is in the hold and very happy with the cold weather. In fact it is colder out there than it was in the fridge :-)

I love listening to BBC Coventry and Warwickshire everyday. Vic Minett's topic of conversation was all about getting into debt at Christmas. I have never ever got into debt at Christmas time. If we could not afford something, we just did not have it. To buy presents for my children, I would put money away for the Christmas shopping, which would usually begin in October, when I would go shopping with my very good friend Yvonne. We have a credit card, but it only ever gets used in emergencies and would never be used to splash out at Christmas. Listening to the callers, who take out loans at Christmas so they can give their children the best Christmas ever, is really quite sad, because they are left with that debt to pay off for the rest of the year and in some cases, they cannot pay it off. Christmas is not about how much money you spend, it is about spending time with your loved ones. Keith and I do not buy big presents, we may buy small stocking filler presents for each other, but that is it. If we want things, we buy them at the time. I found it rather sad listening to the stories on the radio.

Would you get into debt for Christmas???