First Sunday of December.

Cute photograph for today.

Hi Friends.

It is the first Sunday of December and it all began with a heavy frost and the temperature of -4.4 C. 

Having had a couple of days of warmer weather, the cut had defrosted, but this morning it was frozen over again. I do so love to see ice on the cut. I know, I know it is not good when you need to move and especially if you are worried about your blacking. But I love it anyway. When we were doing the coal run on the Leicester Line, no one was bothered by their blacking as long as we made it through with their coal. We did not have a vehicle, so the only way was by water and when your feeling cold and miserable, the sound of the coal boat crunching through the ice is a welcome sound. We would regularly take the blacking off, so our policy was when the boat was high in the water we would slap the blacking back on, ready for her loading and her hull being back down low in the water. It worked perfectly and of course she got blacked every two years as well.

With ice all around, the sun was coming up and casting a warm glow, enough to warm the cockles of anyone's heart. Paddy however was non to keen to go to far this morning and so did what he had to do, then he did an about turn and legged it back to the boat to the warmth of the cabin. Marmite was being very vocal for her breakfast as is usual for her, she is not a cat that likes to wait for anything, but particularly her breakfast.

Yesterday evening I did something to my back, which meant I was walking a little lopsided, thankfully this morning it had eased and although my Sciatica has kicked in again, at least I am more comfortable. Oh the joys of the body telling me I am not a teenager anymore. As for my other issues, they have settled down a little. Having had a week of taking 20 mg Amitriptyline a day, I am now back to 10 mg again and so far so good. I am on them until the New Year, when I hope that my pain will have ceased and I can come off the tablets, but we will of course cross that bridge when we get to it.

News on the freezer and fridge/freezer front. Sadly we received a phone call from the repairer to say that our small freezer is leaking gas and is not repairable. This is bad news indeed, because we have had it no more than 3 years. We are still waiting for the repairman to come and repair our fridge/freezer. We can but hope there is better news on that front, otherwise it is going to be an expensive time. We have not sorted the generator out yet, but have asked that someone come and look at it for us.