Bring it on....

Hello Friends and Followers.

I am quite sure all of those reading this in the United Kingdom are well and truly aware that the so called Beast from the East and Storm Emma have visited and left behind them small and large deposits of the White stuff. We have been blessed with snow, ice and the windchill fact to kill off the Brass Monkeys.

We like probably 99% of the boating community are frozen in. We are however extremely snug onboard with both our fires going.

The coldest temperature has been -8.9 c, which I think has been the coldest we have had for many a Winter here. To say I am enjoying it all is an understatement, I am absolutely loving it. There is nothing nicer than a cold spell, because I can put a stew and dumplings in the back cabin stove, watch Marmite snoozing on the side bed where she seems to have spent most of her days of late and that is only because it is nice and warm. Marmite hates the smallest amount of cold, but then she is a cat.
The cold does not bother me much as long as I am well dressed and my feet are warm. I have been kept busy with brushing the snow off the pontoon, keeping the birds fed and watered. I have kept the stoves burning, by getting in the coal. Safety of course is important, so my stash of table salt has come in handy for the back counter and the pontoon. It has worked well to keep the ice at bay. One does not want to slide into the icy water.

I have found it most annoying that the news has had no other news but the weather. It has been mostly about people not heeding the warnings about not driving unless it is absolutely necessary. Those going out without a real cause, have actually been putting the emergency services lives at risk, because they are the ones who have to go out and rescue those people who are ill prepared for the weather and being stuck in it. Yesterday evening Channel 5 saw fit to run a two hour program called 'The Big Freeze'. As if we had not been bombarded enough by the news about the weather. I did not watch it I am pleased to say. Yes of course having this cold spell brings on all sorts of problems, but some them are of our own making. Even the news reporters around the country had actually travelled to their destinations to report on the bad weather and the fact that people were stuck. Surely the news organisations did not need to put their reports at risk by asking them to drive to snow covered places. We are all well aware of the conditions. I do not need to see a frozen reporter standing out in the snow. I think the media needs to rethink how it reports on such events and stop causing hysteria, after all it has been Winter.
So here we are into the first two days of Spring and I know it is not very Spring like, but hey it could be worse, we could be flooded out. I guess that comes next when the snow melts :-)

Pop back soon xx